What I miss from the old days of regulation was the ability to take a flight to the middle of nowhere. Places like Manhattan, Kansas; Joplin, Missouri; Scottsbluff, Nebraska, etc. that are hundreds of miles from from what passes for airline service, even with the regional airlines.
Combine that with the death of rail service and the shrinkage of intercity bus lines and it means, for example, that if your kid goes to Kansas State, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Purdue, Penn State, etc., you’re in for a bigger hassle than you ever dreamed.
Other local airports. Some went to Midway, before the GA school and FBO there was shut down (don’t get me started, please…) Right now, you’ll find former Meigs pilots at Chicago Executive (formerly Palwaukee), Waukegan, Lake in the Hills, Schaumberg, Gary… If you draw a ring around the city of Chicago about 5-10 miles out on a map you’ll find a bunch of GA airports still in existence on or near that line.
Yes. In the regulation days airports were required to service “middle of nowhere” towns if they wanted the choicest routes between big cities. So were railroads and bus lines. That was back in the days when a majority of people felt that certain companies involved in transportation should be required to provide services to the overall benefit of society in exchange for being able to make lots of money on the deal.
Then deregulation came in, with the battlecry of “efficiency!” above all else. Yes, arguably the airlines (and bus lines) are more efficient these days from some viewpoints yet some of us question whether or not society overall has benefited from this or not. It’s not efficient to offer transportation services to Manhattan , KS et. al but is it a good thing to isolate such communities by failing to provide connection to the rest of the nation?
Most “efficient” might be forcing everyone to live in one giant high rise in the middle of the country – but somehow I don’t think those promoting efficiency and free market would be happy with that, no matter how efficient it may actually be.
That situation persists under the Essential Air Services program. A lot of routes exist only because they are subsidized, to make sure a city or area has service. It seems that any time a Congresscritter decides to try to end that porkbarrel, it dawns on them that they could look mighty good to their constituents by bringing airline service into their district, and EAS grows a little more.