Letter to the Hon. Joe Szabat, Assistant Secretary, Acting Under Secretary for Transportation Policy, U.S. Department of Transportation - Trone, Cardin, Van Hollen, Blumenthal Call Out Trump Administration's Termination of Essential Air Service at Hagerstown Regional Airport

Letter

We are disappointed that the Department of Transportation intends to follow through with a termination of Essential Air Service (EAS) at Hagerstown Regional Airport (Hagerstown) as indicated in your Order 2019-10-10 released on October 11, 2019. This decision appears to ignore the significant progress the airport has made in complying with the program's requirements and the apparent, growing demand for the service. We request, therefore, that you work with us and with the airport to continue the service and to limit the economic disruption.

As you know, the continued success of EAS operations at Hagerstown is critical for operations in several other states, making this decision an issue of national concern. Hagerstown's final data for Fiscal Year 2019 confirms that the airport is in full compliance with EAS requirements, including fulfilling the requirements enacted in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-254) for subsidy per passenger as well as the minimum ten-passenger per-day average requirement.

We understand that at the time some of us met with you in September, you had not yet settled on a number for passengers-per-day, since your vetting process was still ongoing. Order 2019-10-10 further questions the validity of the airport's data. We are disappointed that your review of Hagerstown's circumstances did not provide any opportunity to resolve any discrepancies between data the Department deems acceptable and the data the airport presented to us.

A decision to follow through with the termination of the service contradicts the established policies for EAS while also doing a disservice to the federal government's current $5.7 million investment in the airport's terminal expansion to accommodate an increased number of passengers. Moreover, the termination will negatively impact services at other airports throughout the Mid-Atlantic, Gulf, and New England regions.

We request that you maintain EAS at the airport in recognition of its compliance for Fiscal Year 2019 or until any concerns with data are fully resolved.

Thank you again for considering our views on this issue, and we look forward to your response.