Sample Letter
RESTORE has created a sample letter to send to your Senators and Representatives to support requests to support small and rural air service. Letters are an effective way to voice your concerns to Congress. We encouraged you to add additional detail regarding air service in your community.
​
How to Format a Letter to a Representative
​
How to Format a Letter to a Senator
Sample Language
Dear Senator/Representative [LAST NAME]
​
I am writing to you today because small and rural community airports are losing daily air service at a breakneck pace. Daily air transportation is a critical link from our community to the rest of the country and world and is the main economic driver for good paying jobs, commerce, and recreation. Since the outset of the pandemic, over 300 airports have lost significant air service, including 14 airports that have lost all daily air service. The airlines are quick to point out that we are in the midst of a pilot shortage, and the costs of inputs like fuel are going up, and there is currently a lack of smaller regional jets and equipment shortages. These are certainly factors, but the airlines also fail to mention they received over $54 billion dollars in bailout money—to which much went to forced pilot retirements—and countless billions in annual federal subsidies, all the while reporting record profits as air passengers try to go back to travel as normal post-pandemic. This pain is not felt equally among urban and rural areas. The medium and large hub airports, located in major urban areas, are generally doing fine. The small and rural community airports—like ours—are feeling these effects “worst and first”, and unfortunately, there is not adequate federal support to change this dangerous trend.
​
(Insert Paragraph about your own airport and community and the issues it is facing due to losing daily air service. Suggest what % of air service it has lost, how it is affecting the business community, people moving, etc.)
​
There are two federal programs that, if updated in the FAA Reauthorization, can change this dangerous trend. The Essential Air Service (EAS) and the Small Community Air Service Development (SCASD) programs were created to support small and rural community airports via a direct subsidy to air carriers and grants to airports to entice air carriers to open new routes or support current ones. EAS, however, has been effectively closed to new applicants since 2012 and SCASD receives only $15 million with approximately 40 grants per year. The air service industry has changed vastly since the pandemic, and these programs need to be updated to better reflect the current air service situation.
​
RESTORE (Restoring Essential Service to Our Regional Economies) is a coalition of airports and stakeholders in those communities who have lost a majority of air service, and is working with Congress to make the necessary changes to stave off this crisis by fixing these programs. They have two simple policy solutions that would create the market conditions necessary to bring air service back to rural America.
​
-
Reopen the Essential Air Service program for a period of 5-years by creating a waiver for airports currently ineligible for the program, who can show significant loss of air service since the beginning of the pandemic.
-
Increase baseline funding for the SCASD program to $100 million, and up to 50 awards. Many airlines are looking to airports to raise Minimum Revenue Guarantees, and SCASD is the only program that allows MRG’s—the program is currently funded at only $15 million.
These simple changes would make the EAS and SCASD programs far more effective in achieving their original intent.
​
Senator/Representative [LAST NAME], we ask that you direct your request to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Leadership, Chairwoman Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ranking Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who are leading the writing of the FAA Reauthorization bill.
​
Thank you for supporting [YOUR ORGANIZATION] in this critical matter.
Sincerely,
​
​
​