Flying round-trip from Miles City to Billings costs $88. Why so cheap? Because the government picks up $779 of the tab

0 Comments | USA TODAY, December, 2007 | by Thomas Frank

Imagine an aviation system in which planes fly two-thirds empty, fares are as low as $46 and the government pays up to 93% of the cost of a flight.

You don't have to look far. That system exists in the USA -- and quietly is expanding even as most of the nation's 2 million daily air travelers see fares tick upward for increasingly crowded flights.

Each day, about 3,000 passengers enjoy mostly empty, heavily subsidized flights, financed by a 30-year-old program that requires the government to guarantee commercial air service to scores of small communities that can't support it themselves.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) pays a few small airlines $110 million a year total so they can profitably carry as few as four passengers per day to nearby...