Martin, Michael (OST) HfiT — CST - <^^T-Q1-'S: M 

From: 

Sent: 

To: 

Cc: 

Subject: 

Earle McCormick [demccormick@tds.net] 

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 12:53 PM 

Devany, Dennis (OST) 

Martin, Michael (OST) 

Comments for U.S. Department of Transportation regarding Docket DOT-OST-1997-2784; 

EAS Airline Contract for the Augusta, Maine State Airport 

Mr. Dennis DeVany, 

Mr Michael F Martin, 

The purpose of this letter is to ask that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) recognize that 

constituents of others than the Augusta City Council are served by the Augusta State Airport and the airline 

chosen by USDOT for the EAS contract to serve that Airport. I recognize the Augusta City Council's desire to 

support the recommendations of its own Airport Committee. But that Committee's advice, to recommend Cape 

Air over USAir, is at complete odds with overwhelming public response to the contrary. For the reasons 

outlined below by but one of my constituents who has contacted me with this plea, I ask that you select to 

continue the service of USAir at the Augusta State Airport. 

Respectfully, 

Earle L. McCormick 

Maine State Senator 

Senate District #21 

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I am writing as a frequent business flyer from the Augusta State Airport in Augusta, Maine, in support of 

continuing USAir/Pinnacle/Colgan as the EAS supported airline. This is a case in which the USDOT should 

carefully consider the weight it gives any recommendation by the Augusta City Council, its airport committee, 

or staff before assuming that such recommendation be heeded. These recommendations are flawed by a failure 

to have a reasonable, announced public input process in the important decision, and to flatly ignore the 

overwhelming support of that public which, despite the process, responded when alerted by concerned airport 

users. 

The Augusta City Council bowed to the recommendation of its Airport Committee despite what the Mayor and 

councilors described as the most public input they have had on any issue in any of their individual tenures on 

the Council. They admitted that this public input was virtually all in favor of USAir/Pinnacle/Colgan (hereafter 

referred to as USAir) retaining its service to the State Airport. In addition, public comment submitted to 

Augusta's newspaper, the Kennebec Journal (online version: KJ OnLine) on two occasions ran 80 to 90 per cent 

in favor of retaining USAir. 

So, first, I ask that you consider the opinion of the Augusta area public in this and understand that the City 

Council's recommendation does not reflect the opinion of even its own constituency (population 18,440), much 

less the airport-using community of the surrounding region outside the City of Augusta (Kennebec and Franklin 

Counties alone, minus Augusta, have a population of 132,000). The overwhelming majority of the public who 

care about this issue want USAir to stay. 

Second, I ask that you consider the Airport Committee, its process leading to this recommendation, and its 

qualifications to be the foundation upon which a convincing recommendation to you and the USDOT is poorly 

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supported. The process at no time asked the Augusta Airport users, beyond the pilots and occasional 

commercial flyers on the Airport Committee, for input. The public was not invited nor welcome to attend the 

August 11th presentations of the two carriers competing for the contract in order to ask questions and judge for 

themselves the relative merits of the proposals. 

During the August 11th presentations, the Committee asked for specific responses from USAir and agreed that 

USAir could get back to them with answers (e.g. one on revising prices downward.. .which it since has not only 

answered but implemented). The Council almost made its decision on this issue during its informational 

meeting on August 12th, without benefit of the answers the Airport Committee sought and without mention by 

the Committee chair, a Council member. The Council at the urging of the public attending that this issue was 

too important to go without an opportunity for public input, set the special Council meeting for August 19th 

instead. So by happenstance, and not with the follow-through of the Airport Committee on its obligation to 

USAir, the carrier responded to these questions. 

At the August 11th USAir presentation, a Committee member asked whether the carrier would hangar its plane 

in Augusta. It was explained that it would not, having to seek this amongst means to lower its cost to meet the 

EAS cap as it had committed to. Given the Rockland model, and confirmed at the August 19th Council meeting 

by Cape Air's stated intent to house a plane and pilot in Augusta, I question the objectivity with which the two 

Airport Committee members who are employed by the logical candidate to hangar and fuel the Cape Air plane 

made their decisions to support this recommendation. Another Committee member testified at the 19th Council 

meeting that USAir supporters had "mislabeled" a photo by showing a SAAB 340 for use in Augusta in USAir 

livery. The fact that the SAABs used now in Augusta actually use this livery, as well as some with Colgan Air 

livery, demonstrates this member's lack of touch with Augusta Airport commercial flying operations. In fact, I 

am not aware of any frequent business travelers on this Committee. 

Both the Committee and the Council repeatedly belittled the needs of the business community in favor of 

potential leisure flyers, and felt they would be better served by Cape Air. For the sake of a leisure flyer getting 

discounted tickets on the occasional trip with Cape Air and Jet Blue, they ignored the Augusta business flyer 

with dozens of enplanements each year who depends on the more robust USAir system from Augusta to be able 

to earn a living in Central Maine. 

Finally, I ask that you consider the following which obviously are pushed aside in Federal EAS/air regulations 

to accommodate the likes of Cape Air. Maine State government and the Federal government, respectively, 

should not (for the sake of cheap flights) support awarding or actually award a contract to a carrier which: 

• Admits having no ability to accommodate the handicapped who cannot make it on their own up into the 

aircraft. 

• Utilizes aircraft without secure flight decks. 

• Utilizes aircraft with one pilot, when one pilot's medical emergency or orientation problem or psychological 

issue can doom a flight without second pilot back-up (as occurred in 2008's fatal Cape Air crash due to spatial 

disorientation). An AOPA article supports the notion that one pilot in a twin engine craft certified for one pilot 

is 150% more likely to have an accident than two pilots in the same craft 

(http://www.aopa.org/pilot/turbine/safetv0810.html). 

• Allows passengers to sit at the controls in the co-pilot's seat during commercial passenger flights. 

It is time for the Department of Transportation to break the mold of giving so much weight to a political entity, 

like the Augusta City Council, when that body not only does not represent airport users from surrounding 

communities, but fails to represent the will of those in its own constituency. 

Kevin McGinnis 

57 Central Street 

Hallowell, Maine 04347 

Questions - Nancy & Kevin McGinnis, 512-0975 THANK YOU!