Airport: What now? Loss of flights could mean opportunity
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Where do we go from here? That’s the question on the minds today of those responsible for the operation of the Mercer County Airport. It is a huge dilemma that must include an analysis of how the airport lost commercial flights this past week.
On Monday, Colgan Air flew its last flight from Bluefield, and along with the plane went one of the most substantial components of regional economic growth. Commercial air service is absolutely essential to any progressive economic blueprint, and the value of that service to this region over the past decades has been immeasurable.
We have lost that vital service.
Last Monday evening — only hours after the last plane took off from Mercer County Airport — U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller came to the Daily Telegraph editorial board with detailed documentation from the FAA that underscored why we had lost the service. Simply, we hadn’t pushed to have it continued. We had not made a case for the continuation of Essential Air Service funding, and we hadn’t voiced any need for other available federal funding. The air service, Colgan, had not received any EAS subsidies in its final year, and decided to end the flights this past Monday. Who could blame them.
But even with the shameful record, there was no guarantee that service would have been continued. FAA figures showing passenger usage was far below acceptable levels to justify continued funding. For all intents and purposes, federal tax money (EAS) paid pilots to land empty planes and take off again, empty. Clearly, there’s no benefit to such continued wasteful spending.
This past week, finger-pointing has been the most popular game in town.
Whose fault was it that we lost our commercial air service? The Airport Authority? The County Commission? Our elected representatives?
We think the real fault must be shared by all of us: Every person who decided to use alternative flights from other airports. The old phrase, “Use it or lose it†— popular when rail passenger service through Bluefield was subsidized years ago — smacked us again this past week.
But finger-pointing, in whatever direction, has never generated economic progress. It’s time to rethink — with critical assessment — where we go from here. We must look for a solution to a problem that wasn’t going to improve by throwing more tax money at it.
It’s time not for blame, but for a search for opportunity.
Dilemmas such as the one we’ve endured this past week can often be a springboard to greater successes because those crises demand new approaches.
Gov. Joe Manchin, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, State Sen. Truman Chafin and others are pressing for practical answers that will work. Several options have been considered this past week that could work, such as an affordable air taxi shuttle concept.
We fully expect a workable plan to be unveiled soon.
But there’s a very important dynamic to any solution: We absolutely must guarantee local and regional stewardship in effectively managing whatever replaces fixed-schedule commercial flights. The single-most important component in that guarantee is in visionary administration — oversight to ensure practical direction and muscle to enforce responsible management. Had that type of administration been in place, deadlines, compliance, grants and other procedures would not have been missed. It is realistic to assume that commercial aviation would still be in place at the airport.
During this Thanksgiving week, there is much we as a community, a county and a region can be supremely thankful for. It is where we live, it is home. As a community, a county and a region, we must protect all we hold dear. It must be a sanctuary for our children and our grandchildren.
We must remember that the loss of another critical component to our economic well-being is not acceptable.
