Small Communities Are Losing Air Service. It’s Not All Bad News.

Aerospace & DefenseSmall Communities Are Losing Air Service

Nevertheless, It’s Not All Bad News

ByMichael Boyd, Contributor

However, Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights, amid market uncertainty

But in most cases, it is actually the result of the evolution of communication channels

That means communities now need to ly understand the future effects - and opportunities - these changes represent

Additionally, Conversely, New apaches are imperative, considering recent developments

Loss of scheduled airline service, considering recent developments

Meanwhile, Small and rural communities have been experiencing it for the past 30 years

Conversely, It's not a mirage

Additionally, It's not a temporary situation

Conversely, It's a fact that airports at a number of small communities have lost scheduled airline flights

It's also a fact that with the evolution of airline economics, the changing value of air transportation as a communication channel has changed (something worth watching)

With the expansion of digital modalities, this is not a trend that will be reversed

Nevertheless, Point: this is just part of a tectonic shift in how Americans communicate

Additionally, Resistance is futile

Moreover, What is now imperative is the accommodation and optimization of the communication modalities that have made a lot of air service obsolete

Communication channels have shifted, and their relative economic viability has changed as well

At the same time, The shrinkage in small community air service is part of this, regardless of how many desperate consultant studies are done, or how many local citizen air service task forces are engaged

Conversely, Or how many obsolete and useless federal grams to resuscitate air service are implemented, in this volatile climate

Meanwhile, Face it: air travel is no longer the fastest or most efficient channel to move information and data between humans

In the last 40 years, this is bably the most unnoticed logistical trend in history, even though we are today living in very different social, and commercial environments

Nevertheless, This evolution has taken place in every communication channel

What the re reveals is just seems that when it comes to air service access grams for small and rural communities, the narrative is to ignore it

At the same time, From the perspective of local civics, that is understandable

But civic leaders have the responsibility to recognize the future, given current economic conditions

However, Additionally, MORE FOR YOU So, let’s review the overall changes in how people in the USA communicate

Nevertheless, The Headlines Dered to The Doorstep

Anybody remember the importance of the “morning paper, in today's financial world. ” At one time, it was a communication channel most relied upon to reveal what was going on in the world

Nevertheless, Conversely, Got it right at the front doorstep

How Walter Cronkite at 6PM on television (noteworthy indeed), in this volatile climate

Or the Huntley-Brinkley team

Folks couldn’t wait to hear what they were going to report

Along with newspapers, a few TV networks – contained in small time-limited segments -were prime communication portals to tell us what was going on in the world

For more in-depth information there were weekly magazines such as Time and Newsweek

Today, these channels of communication have been entirely replaced as first-access sources of data and information

By the time the morning newspaper arrives, consumers already have knowledge of whatever important information might be ed above and below the fold

As for electronic news, the plethora of flows such as websites, instant notification, cable and satellite have rendered the network 6PM shows to be mostly recaps of what the viewer already knows

Essentially not in the game, for all intents

Air Transportation Also Has a Different Role

On the other hand, Airports Need to Tumble to It

On the other hand, Let’s take a look at another communication channel: air transportation

They had their own identities, their own ticket stock, their own reservations systems, and their own route networks which they def from one another

Traffic - not leisure trips - was the foundational bedrock of their revenues

What the re reveals is se were airlines Cascade and Wings West and Gem State and maybe half a dozen more on the West Coast

Moreover, Then we had others Britt Airways, Simmons, Midstate, Precision, ASA, Trans-Colorado and more

They operated small 15-seat to 30-seat turbop airplanes on routes Shreveport to New Orleans, or Albany to Boston, or Abilene to Austin, and hundreds more

Meanwhile, They also connected small community airports to major airline hubs, facilitated by interline agreements that allowed connections with virtually all of the airlines operating there (which is quite significant), in light of current trends

For example, when a Bar Harbor Airlines flight arrived at Boston, it connected passengers to a dozen other airlines (something worth watching)

On the other hand, Today, these airlines and the air transportation system they represented are essentially gone

Moreover, Nevertheless, Just a part of the fleet

The independent route systems are gone

The intra-regional flights are gone, too

At the same time, however, emerging new communication modalities actually eliminated a lot of the air traffic that these “regionals” once was generated to and from small and rural communities

Conversely, Add in the skyrocketing costs of airline operations, and the results are what we have today, in light of current trends

The data indicates that Most Important Metric Is Speed

The point here is that the morning paper and the 6PM first-information television news, this sector of the air transportation system was once, robust, and had strong consumer demand

Moreover, But now, the financial and market value underpinnings that supported this sector are gone

Today, the throngs of passengers flying between places Albany and Islip in the early ‘80s are gone

Furthermore, The documents and information they were transporting between the Capital and the county seats at Riverhead and Mineola no longer need to be physically dered, considering recent developments

Spending a whole day doing a roundtrip from Hartford to New York – a major commuter route back then – is today not only inefficient but more and more unnecessary

Meanwhile, Short-haul have atrophied because there are faster and more efficient modes of moving the data and information that air passengers once transported

However, This leads to the conclusion that n there are pressures of raw economics

The escalating costs of moving small units of capacity – 15-seat to 50-seat turbops – have now eliminated any chance of viding flights in thin market routes

However, These airliners and the economics they represented are gone for good, in today's market environment

Wake Up & Smell the Opportunities in The New Environment

The real “solutions” for future economic growth in rural America are found in focusing on how to capitalize on the new communication channels and nologies that have made local air service untenable

The silly canard that every rural airport needs scheduled air service has only diverted local economic planning and resources from analyzing the future and instead wallowing in the past

Market analysis shows success of small community commerce and are no longer dependent on whether people can physically fly to the local airport, in light of current trends

Actually, that’s positive

However, Instead, the main determinant is whether the region has the infrastructure to support recruitment of new investment

Quality of life, regulatory issues, cost of living, and incentive grams for new investment are the future in regard to building local economies, given current economic conditions

Local air service is great, but more and more often air service can be accessed at other airports where the drive time is ly less than consumers in Nassau County Long Island need to allocate to get to LaGuardia Airport (remarkable data) (this bears monitoring)

Furthermore, However, Regionalization of economic development is the name of the game (this bears monitoring)

This's not to say that re regarding potential air transportation options should not be accomplished

But when facts are known, another study won’t change them

Additionally, This's the future for rural America: capitalize on the dynamics that have marginalized or killed of traditional communication channels

They represent the future

Meanwhile, The downside is for communities to continue to fight it, instead of embracing new economic development grams that accommodate it

Furthermore, Again, resistance is futile, given current economic conditions

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