The Trump administration’s “skinny” 2026 budget request includes $308 million of proposed cuts to the Essential Air Service (EAS) programme that subsidises regional airline flights to rural communities throughout the USA.
Such a budgetary decrease would represent a substantial majority of last year’s $349 million in discretionary US spending on EAS flying to small and non-hub airports.
Trump’s budget request calls on Congress to adopt $163 billion in non-defence discretionary spending cuts, along with a 13% increase in defence spending.
A skinny budget is not a detailed budget proposal but rather represents the president’s high-level spending priorities, signalling potential areas of focus amid Trump’s government cost-cutting spree.
Under the ”cuts, reductions and consolidations” section of Trump’s budget proposal, released 2 May, the administration says the EAS programme “funnels taxpayer dollars to airlines to subsidise half-empty flights from airports that are within easy commuting distance from each other, while also failing to effectively provide assistance to most rural air travellers”.
Spending on the programme is “out of control”, the administration adds, “more than doubling between 2021 and 2025”. The budget proposal “reins in” EAS subsidised with a ”mix of reforms to adjust eligibility and subsidy rates”.
”This would save American taxpayers over $300 million from the 2025 level,” the administration says.
The US spent $142 million on EAS flying in 2021 – a year during which airline travel was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the US spent $175 million on subsidising regional flights.
The EAS programme has connected small and remote communities since airline deregulation in 1978, weathering periodic criticism for supporting unprofitable routes unlikely to otherwise exist. The programme has been targeted by budget hawks for decades, though spending on the programme has increased in recent years.
Industry advocacy group the Regional Airline Association (RAA) says that Trump’s budget proposal is a ”starting point”.
”We will work with the White House and Congress to show the Essential Air Service programme is an important economic force multiplier for small and rural communities – driving at least $134 billion in economic impact, supporting one million jobs, and providing for $36 billion in local wages and corresponding tax revenues, while connecting residents with the rest of the country,” says RAA chief executive Faye Malarkey Black.
“As we work to protect this crucial investment, we welcome a collaborative effort to review and revitalise the programme, ensuring it delivers on its promise to keep remote communities connected through safe and reliable air service,” she adds.
Malarkey has previously described the EAS programme as a “lifeline” for small communities.
The initiative also provides a steady source of revenue for regional carriers themselves, some of which shape their business models around landing EAS contracts.
Funding for the programme comes partially from overflight fees collected from foreign carriers that fly overhead but do not land within the USA. The US collected $154 million from such fees last year.
Notably, that funding source recently came under threat, as a congressional committee in February considered eliminating overflight fees. The RAA called on Congress to protect the levies as part of the US budget reconciliation process. The committee did not take action to change or eliminate the overflight fees.
