Rep. Bill Light, a Republican from Rolla, said he recently drove 4 ½ hours from his hometown for a flight out of Wichita even though the airport in Amarillo, Texas, is about half the distance.
The airfare, reduced by Wichita's payments to AirTran Airways, had apparently made the longer drive worthwhile.
Light shared his anecdote during a House committee hearing Tuesday. It underscores the support Wichita's affordable airfare bill enjoys this year.
"The way things are going now, it looks like it will get support on the floor," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Melvin Neufeld, a R-Ingalls.
He said the only obstacle the bill may face could surface if lawmakers are in a pinch to find money for schools.
But Wichita-area lawmakers and lobbyists are confident that the $5 million of lottery money they are asking for to subsidize airfares will come back to the state in the form of more people flying and more businesses keeping their roots in Kansas, all generating more tax money.
Bill 475 calls for the state to provide $5 million a year for each of the next five years to subsidize AirTran flights. Local governments and businesses would spend $1.67 million a year over the same period.
Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican, said a larger coalition of cities supporting the bill and the commitments from businesses make the proposal more likely to pass this year.
The bill also has bipartisan support, she said.
Several previous attempts to get state subsidies for airlines flying out of Mid-Continent have failed because Kansas City-area lawmakers were not convinced of the benefit.
It passed the House in 2001, only to be rejected by the Senate.
The Senate, which voted the proposal down five years ago, passed it 35-2 last month.
At the time, several lawmakers chided Wichita-area senators for voting against gambling bills, which, like flight subsidies, are aimed at economic development.
Landwehr warned that she won't trade a "yes" vote on gambling for other lawmakers' support of the airfares bill.
"We have very few things up here that we get to control," she said. "Integrity is one that we can."
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