Washington, DC—February 22, 2013-- Regional airlines operate 50 percent of the scheduled passenger flights across the nation, and provide the only scheduled service to 470 communities – representing three-fourths of the nation’s passenger airports. These communities will be deeply harmed by sequestration, as reflected in today’s FAA announcement of potential staffing cutbacks and facility closings across the nation.
“The government is playing an irresponsible game of chicken--with no winners--and the traveling and shipping public will be the losers,” says RAA President Roger Cohen. “The communities most dependent on scheduled service from regional airlines for their only connection to the global economy will be hurt the most,” he underlines.
Cohen notes passengers from these communities will suffer a “double-whammy”: enduring shift reductions or outright closing of airports on one end of regional flights, and staffing cutbacks causing delays and missed connections at the major hubs – such as Chicago O’Hare, Houston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York’s LaGuardia and Newark, and Washington Reagan – each where regional airlines account for more than half the daily flights.
Founded in 1975, Washington, D.C.-based RAA provides a wide array of technical, government relations and public relations services for regional airlines. With safety as its highest priority, the association's 26 member airlines and nearly 200 associate members represent the key decision-makers of this vital sector of the commercial aviation industry. With more than 13,000 regional airline flights every day, regional airlines operate half of the nation’s scheduled flights with nearly 75 percent of U.S. airports relying on regional airlines exclusively.
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