Aviation support

Passage in the U.S. Senate and the House Aviation Subcommittee last week of a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration takes Bangor International Airport another step in its recovery from the effects of airline deregulation. The good news is meaningful, however, only if other parts of BIA’s recovery plan are also completed.

Senate and House aviation subcommittees, which include Sen. Olympia Snowe and Rep. John Baldacci, agreed to rebuild the trust fund for airports that were created by user fees decades ago but dismantled in the 1960s. The fund will send more money back to Maine over the next three years, adding $3.3 million to BIA, $1 million to the Northern Maine Regional Airport in Presque Isle, $3.5 million to the Portland International Jetport and $4.1 million to help 13 regional facilities statewide. The full Senate passed the legislation 82-17 Wednesday; the House is also expected to support the measure.

The aviation fund will look a lot like the one set aside for highways and will restore it to the condition that first persuaded the airlines to agree to the user fees, according to Rep. Baldacci. The money from airline passengers will go back into supporting airports, allowing them to be safer and more efficient. A proposal initiated by Sen. Snowe will increase access for regional jets to major airports — those are the 50- to 100-seat jets that are coming to dominate traffic at the nation’s smaller airports.

The news comes to Maine as BIA has begun to rebound in its own right — new or expanded flights including those from Allegheny Airlines, Pan Am and Delta, LifeFlight of Maine moving into the new corporate aviation hangar, new parts and service business from Telford Aviation and Ages-Volvo Aero and a commitment from the state that BIA will become a transportation hub for the region. None of these events were possible without a lot of hard work from the BIA staff.

Nevertheless, the airport still has plenty of repairs to make to keep it running, including a total of $20 million for runway improvements. It has more to do with its four-year improvement plan that should boost its marketing and development and improve infrastructure around the airport. And, as passengers are eager to point out, ticket price differences between Bangor and airports to the south remain a concern.

Increased federal funding was an important piece of BIA’s improvement plan, and persistence by Sen. Snowe and Rep. Baldacci in seeing that small airports were not ignored as major hubs reaped the benefits of deregulation certainly has helped Maine. The trust fund suggests that it is help that the state can count on in the years to come.