CLEARFIELD – The U.S. Department of Transportation, through the office of U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, recently announced the award of an Essential Air Services contract to Southern Airways Express to provide commuter air service out of the DuBois Regional Airport.
It will annually bring $2.9 million of federal taxpayer dollars to subsidize approximately 4,000 individual passengers who utilize commuter service out of the DuBois Regional Airport, said Commissioner Mark B. McCracken at Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting. The U.S. DOT’s contract with Southern will run for two years beginning Oct. 1 and ending Oct. 31 of 2018.
Additionally, the DuBois Regional Airport receives state grants and annual county taxpayer subsidies from Clearfield and Jefferson counties to maintain facilities and pay ongoing operation costs, according to the commissioners.
The commissioners said that the new carrier, Southern Airways Express, will also initially offer very affordable $25 one-way, per passenger, flights to Pittsburgh International Airport and, for an additional cost, daily flights to Baltimore.
They encouraged business and leisure travelers to utilize the new air service options made available through the federal subsidy provided by their tax dollars.
However, even with the news of returning flight service to Pittsburgh and optional daily flights to Baltimore, the commissioners pointed out that the DuBois Regional Airport is projected to continue operating in the red.
“Annually, the commissioners of Clearfield and Jefferson counties are faced with requests for additional taxpayer funding for DuBois Regional Airport, funds that can only come from higher real estate property taxes,” the commissioners said in a provided statement.
“Like working families on fixed incomes, county government has to decide what our funding priorities are. In county government, the priority is keeping the courthouse, the county court system, the county jail and mandated county functions adequately funded to provide necessary services to the citizens of Clearfield County.
“While we remain committed to providing some level of county subsidy to the DuBois Regional Airport, unfortunately, current economic conditions along with rising costs for federal and state mandates require us to continue with our plan to reduce the annual county subsidy from Clearfield County to $60,000 for 2017.”
The commissioners continued, saying: “Taking into account the services we are mandated to provide as a county government, funding for the DuBois Regional Airport is a lower priority item and the Clearfield County taxpayers should not see, and likely would not support, a tax increase to provide additional subsidy dollars to the DuBois Regional Airport.
“As we have done for over two years, we continue to encourage the DuBois Regional Airport to look for other sources of revenue beyond taxpayer subsidy from the federal and state government and Clearfield and Jefferson counties.
“In the past two years, the Clearfield County Commissioners have requested passenger numbers be broken out by county to determine if residents of counties other than Clearfield and Jefferson are seeing a benefit from the DuBois Regional Airport.
“If so, then other counties should also provide funding to keep this ‘regional’ asset in operation. Unfortunately, we have been told that these numbers are confidential and cannot be released.”
According to the commissioners, members of the DuBois Regional Airport Authority have stressed that businesses throughout the region see significant financial benefit from having access to the DuBois Regional Airport.
As a result, the commissioners have suggested the creation of an entity, “Businesses/Individuals to Support the DuBois Regional Airport,” that private businesses and individuals could purchase annual memberships and voluntarily donate money to keep the airport in operation.
In summary, the commissioners continue to agree that the DuBois Regional Airport is a “valuable asset” to the entire region. At the same time, they wanted to stress that other revenue sources must be found.
“Private business interests must step up to financially support the airport and counties other than Clearfield and Jefferson should start providing a subsidy if their citizens and businesses are utilizing and seeing benefit from the airport,” they said.