U.S. Department of Transportation: Small Community Air Service Development Program

The Small Community Air Service Development Program (SCASDP), a grant program designed to help small communities address air service and airfare issues. The Department of Transportation is authorized to award grants to communities that seek to provide assistance to:

• A U.S. air carrier to subsidize service to and from an underserved airport for a period not to exceed 3 years;
• An underserved airport to obtain service to and from the underserved airport; and/or
• An underserved airport to implement such other measures as the Secretary, in consultation with such airport, considers appropriate to improve air service both in terms of the cost of such service to consumers and the availability of such service, including improving air service through marketing and promotion of air service and enhanced utilization of airport facilities.

Amount: Up to $10,000,000 is available to assist up to 40 communities. In past years, the Department’s individual grant sizes have ranged from $20,000 to nearly $1,600,000.

Eligibility: Small communities that meet the following statutory criteria:

• (1) The airport serving the community or consortium is not larger than a small hub airport, defined as “a commercial service airport that has at least 0.05 percent but less than 0.25 percent of the passenger boardings;” or (2) as of calendar year 1997, the airport serving the community or consortium was not larger than a small hub airport (see: http://www.dot.gov/policy/aviation-policy/small-community-rural-air-service/SCASDP)
• It has insufficient air carrier service or unreasonably high air fares; and
• The airport serving the community presents characteristics, such as geographic diversity or unique circumstances that demonstrate the need for, and feasibility of, grant assistance from the Small Community Program

No more than four communities or consortia of communities, or a combination thereof, from the same State may be selected to participate in the program in any fiscal year.

Link: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=298018

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