Flights to Isolated Towns : Subsidized Air Service May Be Grounded

A dozen times a week, Flight 3323’s engines crank into a throbbing whine and launch an 18-passenger turboprop out of one of the nation’s busiest airports into one of air travel’s loneliest routes.

The federally subsidized flight from Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport 200 miles south to Moultrie averages about one passenger. Often the plane flies empty of passengers.

As the government looks for some wings to clip, Flight 3323’s days may be numbered.

Moultrie, population 16,000, is one of about 150 rural American towns protected since airline deregulation in 1978 by the government’s Essential Air Service program.

Many of the towns are in isolated areas where bus and train service has diminished. While some of the flights are seldom used, they often are the only link, short of long car trips, between two cities.

Under EAS provisions, the government pays the airlines to keep flying the routes.

It would cost $31.6 million annually in subsidies to maintain current EAS flights, but only $25 million has been appropriated this fiscal year, and the Department of Transportation says cuts must be made.

Eastern Atlantis Express, the Eastern Airlines affiliate that has operated the Atlanta-Moultrie route since 1983, had 1,248 scheduled departures between the two cities last year and sold 1,301 one-way tickets, an average of just over one a flight.

The one-way fare is $104. Flight 3323’s subsidies last year were $379,000, which works out to about $291 per passenger.

On Friday morning, a reporter and Rosalind Johnson, a Moultrie native who lives in Denver, were the only passengers on the one-hour flight to this southern Georgia farm town. The amiable co-pilot walked back from the curtained cockpit, squatted in the aisle and explained the many safety features of the aircraft.

“Any questions?” he asked. “OK, let’s go.”

Makes Trip Often

“I’ve been the only passenger on this flight many times,” said Johnson, who has been making the trip often recently because of sick relatives.

The town has no college or major industry. There is no Amtrak service within 130 miles; the bus trip from Atlanta takes 5 1/2 hours.

“It would be a shame not to have it,” Johnson said of the airline route. “I don’t know what I’ll do if they stop--fly to Albany and drive, I guess.” Albany, with several daily flights, is a 40-minute drive from Moultrie.

An inaudible message crackled over a loudspeaker. “Usually they just lean back into the cabin and shout if they want us to know something,” she said over the engine.

On the return to Atlanta, the plane held six passengers. One young woman going to Atlanta to visit friends said she usually drives. “But it’s 3 1/2 hours each way and that gets long after a while,” she said.

In deciding what subsidies may be cut, the Transportation Department is looking at several factors, including whether air service is available elsewhere in the area, which routes have high subsidies and which routes have the fewest passengers.

“We most likely will be targeted,” said David Howard, a vice president of the Florence, S.C.-based Atlantis line. “We did refile last July to keep the market.” He said the subsidy allows a profit of 5%.

The Essential Air Service subsidy program was authorized for 10 years and has been extended, with modifications, into 1998. David Smallen, a spokesman for the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, said congressmen from rural districts are dedicated to keeping it.