Essential Air Service

The closure of the U.S.-Canada land border due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which remained in place for over two years between March 2020 and November 2022 was particularly hard for some of the regional airports in the U.S. that heavily rely on Canadian passengers to generate traffic. Among those Plattsburgh International Airport, nicknamed “Montreal’s U.S. […]

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has once again updated its ever-changing flight schedule for some of the small communities it operates to in the Midwestern U.S. While most of the communities do lose their tag flights and go back to their original nonstop flights, some still do retain them but change where the extra stop will […]

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has made it through the pandemic without starting a single tag route. Other airlines such as United, American, Alaska, and others combined destinations into a single flight to save costs during the pandemic due to severely light passenger loads. SkyWest under the United Express banner combined many smaller EAS communities into […]

SkyWest has had a rough couple of months, they requested to end 31 EAS contracts in the spring of 2022 and have combined about a dozen other communities into tag flights. It is seen in the industry that when one airline has its troubles, other airlines will step in and reap the reward. This was […]

In mid-July 2022, the Department of Transportation posted a document selecting Sun Country as the airline that will serve the Essential Air Service of Eau Claire in Wisconsin. When the DOT decision was made it was a shock to most as there has never been an aircraft this large operating an EAS route within the […]

Essential Air Service (EAS), the government-funded program providing air service to small communities around the U.S., has been in the newS a lot recently. With new contracts being selected almost every month around the country, and SkyWest requesting to terminate more than 30 of these contracts, it is a very confusing time for the program […]

SkyWest recently requested the termination of 31 Essential Air Service (EAS) contracts, and the process of refilling those contracts has reached the stage airlines submit proposals to the Department of Transportation, and community and industry members can comment on them. The proposals were originally due on April 11i, but the due date was extended to May 11, […]

Palm Beach, Fla.-based Southern Airways Express has been growing immensely since its founding in 2013, with its most recent rapid growth being only two months ago in March of 2022 when it acquired Air Choice One. This recent news will be its sixth merger or acquisition as it was announced today in a company memo […]

The U.S. Essential Air Service has seen some strain recently as three airlines — the most recent carrier being Cape Air — requested to terminate at least two of their contracts before they were due to expire. As a result, the government has been forced to look for other operators to fill those voids. It began […]

The Essential Air Service – or EAS – communities have been taking a major hit over the past eight months. First Boutique Air requested to terminate Jackson, Tenn. followed by Show Low, Ariz. Altoona, Penn., and Pendleton, Oregon, although the latter three were just so the carrier could get a higher subsidy and is in […]