President Donald Trump’s budget proposal would cut funding by more than half for the Essential Air Service program, which has ensured daily jet service to Wrangell, Petersburg, Yakutat and Cordova for almost 50 years.
The program covers 65 small communities in Alaska — which includes 11 in Southeast — and 112 communities in the Lower 48, Hawaii and Puerto Rico as of late last year.
Congress created the Essential Air Service subsidy in 1978 to ensure a minimum level of service for communities that otherwise might receive no regularly scheduled flights.
The program costs the federal treasury $592 million a year, with just under $42 million going to Alaska air service. The White House Office of Management and Budget on May 2 released Trump’s recommendations for 2026 federal funding levels, including a 52% cut to the air service budget.
The U.S. Department of Transportation, which administers the nationwide program, in mid-March approved a two-year contract with Alaska Airlines to run through April 2027.
The contract will pay $17.146 million per year for passenger service, more than two-thirds of which would go to cover Alaska Airlines’ losses on Yakutat and Cordova operations. The rest covers year-round service to Wrangell and Petersburg, and summer flights to Gustavus.
An additional $698,000 is for weekly freighter service to the communities.
Congressional approval would be required to cut the program’s budget.
In explaining the budget proposal, the Trump administration wrote that the program “funnels taxpayer dollars to airlines to subsidize half-empty flights from airports that are within easy commuting distance from each other.”
Alaska’s senior senator, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, sees it differently. “It is not an overstatement to call Essential Air Service a lifeline for many Alaskans,” Murkowski said in a statement on May 6. The senator vowed to support continuation of the program through her position as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Alaska’s other U.S. senator, Sen. Dan Sullivan, was similarly direct. The senator “understands that Essential Air Service is a necessity for many Alaska communities off the road system,” he said in a prepared statement.
The subsidy covered air service to 184 Alaska communities when it started up in 1978, but has been steadily reduced over the years and now applies to 65 cities and villages, with several small air carriers flying just a single route.
The program is funded primarily through fees collected by the Federal Aviation Administration from foreign air carriers that fly through U.S. airspace, as well as excise taxes from domestic passenger ticket sales and other users of the country’s aviation system, according to reporting in the Alaska Beacon last week.
The Trump administration cited rising costs in its budget proposal — the subsidies have risen over 50% since 2021. The General Accounting Office determined in a 2024 report that higher airline operating expenses overall, primarily for fuel, pilot wages and maintenance have led to the rising cost to the government.
Daily jet service north and south from Wrangell “is a big economic factor for our community,” particularly as the town wants to attract more independent travelers to boost summer business, Wrangell Mayor Patty Gilbert said last fall, as she was rounding up support for Alaska Airlines’ application.
Essential Air Service has been targeted for cost cutting in the past, the Alaska Beacon reported. In 2007, then-U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens called on fellow senators of rural states to “remain vigilant” in funding the program, which the Alaska senator called a “lifeline” in their communities.
In 2012, Alaska’s congressional delegation joined a bipartisan group of legislators in preserving the program.
Trump sought to eliminate the program during his first term in 2017. Congress blocked that effort.
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