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Sizable Investment May Be Needed Annually For Airport

For too long, we’ve heard arguments about how important air service is at the Chautauqua County Airport in Jamestown.

Those arguments were undermined by underwhelming ridership and less than stellar airline service. At the same time, the importance of air travel was framed in terms of taxpayer subsidy to the airport in the form of both Essential Air Service subsidies from the federal government and in the form of county taxpayer dollars.

That’s one reason why the conversation hosted by U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, with area business officials, foundation officials and other local stakeholders, including County Executive George Borrello, at the Chautauqua Harbor Hotel is a conversation that has been needed for a long time. Over the course of two days, those assembled discussed what the airport should be, what work might need to be done to increase use of the airport and, most interestingly, to gauge interest in assisting with a possible local share.

For too long, taxpayers have been footing the bill for the airport when too few taxpayers were using the facility. Borrello said the federal government is pushing for local businesses and the local community to “have skin in the game. They would like to see a private/public partnership supporting (the airport) locally.”

We cannot criticize the federal Transportation Department for doing their job by enforcing the rules of the Essential Air Service program and ending the federal subsidy to the county airport. We also can’t criticize the federal officials for wanting to see those pushing for the restoration of air service to have a financial stake in the airport. Continued federal subsidies for an airport that cannot meet required ridership levels is, after all, the very definition of wasteful government spending. But, how much constitutes enough local interest to constitute “skin in the game?” If the airport couldn’t be sustained on the backs of county and federal taxpayers, it seems that local investment would have to be a fairly sizeable each and every year to justify the airport’s existence to the federal government.

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