Does Lancaster desire local commercial air service?

A Lancaster Sunday News article is headed “Sen. Casey urges DOT to preserve commercial air service at Lancaster Airport.”

It relates:

“U.S. Sen. Bob Casey on Wednesday urged U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx to overturn a tentative order that would lead to the end of commercial air service here.

“Casey, the Pennsylvania Democrat, encouraged Foxx to keep Lancaster Airport in the Essential Air Service subsidy program.

“The $2.5 million annual subsidy goes to Sun Air, allowing the small airline to make a profit on its flights between Lancaster Airport and Dulles International Airport, outside Washington D.C.”

Questions:

1) Why run the risk of taking a rare flight from Lancaster when Harrisburg International can be reached in an extra twenty to forty minutes. If there is a cancellation due to weather going or coming, the traveler is really stuck. (For that reason, we usually fly from Philadelphia or Baltimore.)

2) Who wants to fly to Dulles International with its limited domestic flights and long distance from most DC destinations.

3) Why subsidized a local service that very few choose to use? (Oh, we forgot, this is ‘free’ money from the federal government. How dumb of us.)

For a community of so called conservatives, they all seem to become ‘big spending liberals’ when it comes to local pork.

Of course the worst local crime of this decade is the CRIZ plan, that benefits private interests now at the expense of tax revenue that otherwise would benefit ourselves, our children, and our grand children.

We will be writing in greater depth about CRIZ in the future.