On the day that Federal Aviation Administration funding was set to expire, Congress and the White House reauthorized it — and then some.
“It’s a massive porkfest,” Gary Leff, author of the influential View from the Wing website, described the bill to the Washington Examiner. As one example, Leff noted that Congress “more than doubled Essential Air Service subsidies — a program that was supposed to be temporary and end in 1988. They liberalized restrictions on how much airports close to other airports can receive, too.”
Marc Scribner, transportation policy analyst for the Reason Foundation, said the FAA reauthorization “largely perpetuates the status quo, which isn’t particularly surprising given the COVID-19 chaos” that the industry is still recovering from.
If that is so, then the status quo has gotten more expensive. The 2018 FAA reauthorization
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