Cheyenne Wants a Home for a White Elephant to Roam

Wyoming faces a multi-million dollar deficit in the 2017-18 biennium and the specter of plummeting revenue looms large on the horizon. Why then, is the State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB) about to rubber stamp funding to help lift a new $18 million terminal off the ground at an airport that just last year lost 50 percent of its customer seating capacity and has no hope of takeoff anytime soon? Government does a bad job of picking winners and with all the problems with the airline industry, constructing a new airport terminal in Cheyenne will undoubtedly leave us with a white elephant we can ill afford.

The SLIB is composed of Governor Mead, Treasurer Mark Gordon, Auditor Cynthia Cloud, Secretary of State Ed Murray and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Ballow. On October 1, 2015, the Wyoming Business Council will ask it to rubber stamp millions of dollars in requests for handouts, among them $3 million in state funding for a new $18 million airport terminal in Cheyenne.

State taxpayers aren't the only ones expected to ante up. The Federal Aviation Administration will provide $5.9 million, the Wyoming Aeronautics Commission will pay $2.9 million and City of Cheyenne taxpayers $6.3 million, getting hit twice for the cost.

The federal money is a bit of an eyebrow raiser given that Cheyenne's airport fell below the 10,000 embarkation threshold in 2014, a requirement to qualify for $1 million in Federal Airport Improvement Funding. However, it will still qualify for a federal grant of $150,000 for enplanements below 10,000. The federal government seems to be about aware of the problems facing airline industry as some members of the state government.

Indeed, the Cheyenne airport faces problems a new terminal will do nothing to solve.

During a recent Air Transportation Liaison Committee meeting, the Wyoming Department of Transportation's aeronautics division gave committee members a description of the sad state of air transportation and the grim outlook for the future.

Airline capacity across the nation fell between 2007 and 2014. This decline is a result of new federal regulations causing pilot shortages, and pilot wage increases pressuring smaller carriers, a reduction in small jet and turboprop planes in fleets, the discontinuation of production of smaller jets, and a shift to larger capacity airplanes.

Wyoming is no exception.

According to WyDot's presentation, statewide capacity declined by one percent in 2014. Excluding Jackson, statewide capacity plummeted 11 percent, mainly due to capacity cutbacks by Great Lakes Airlines. WyDot forecasts total statewide capacity to dive by 5.6 percent during the first half of 2015, also due to capacity cuts in Riverton, Sheridan, and Cheyenne.

Making matters worse, Riverton, Sheridan, and Cheyenne showed dismal on-time performance and reliability in 2014, with 56 percent of completed flights operating on time, compared to an industry average of 75 percent. Reliability for these cities also nose-dived from 89 percent in 2013, to 75 percent in 2014. This trails far behind the industry average of 98.6 percent. Free falling reliability is mainly due to Great Lakes Airlines' ongoing pilot and staffing shortages.

Combine poor reliability with Denver's proximity and we have a recipe for zero tolerance. It is not exactly news that many people in Cheyenne choose to fly from Denver. According to WyDot, about half of all Wyoming passengers travel from out of state airports.

A fancy new building cannot increase passenger throughput as long as the underlying problems – pilot shortages, fewer smaller jets and cutbacks to air service – remain. Of course, it will do nothing to change Cheyenne's proximity to Denver.

Funding a new terminal in Cheyenne is, put plainly, a waste of money. A better option would be to refurbish the old terminal and get out of the way of options found at business airports, such as charter businesses, flight schools, private jets and recreational airplanes.

Although handing out subsidies might seem like a good idea when using other people's money, air transportation suffers from issues corporate welfare won't fix. A new terminal would likely leave Wyoming taxpayers paying for a white elephant for years to come.

The SLIB board should reject this wasteful use of tax dollars.