Thanks, Taxpayers, for My Subsidized Ticket on an Airplane Gutted to Meet Stupid Regulations
9th June 2014
Prescott’s wonderfully bare-bones Ernest A. Love Field offers commercial service to LAX courtesy of Great Lakes Airlines. OK, it’s really courtesy of American taxpayers, who underwrite the operation to the tune of $2,094,235 (PDF) per year.
I’d add the technical detail that the service is offered on 19-seat Beechcraft 1900D turboprop planes, except that when we boarded, the plane was gutted. Ten of the seats had been ripped out.
“It’s because of me,” the pilot told a fellow passenger who asked about the very interesting configuration, though he meant the company’s pilots in general. “The FAA revised pilot qualifications last year for 19 seat planes. So now we only operate them with nine seats.”
…
For what it’s worth, Snyder sees no safety issue in the scheme, since the same pilots who were safely flying 19-seat planes are now operating the nine-seaters. It’s just an end-run around red tape.