Over two years, $5.25 million. That’s the state subsidy – taxpayer dollars – that Aer Lingus will be receiving to begin direct flights four days a week this coming late May between Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) and Dublin.
Some would call that a “bargain” considering the amount for which other U.S. airports were shaken down. At least one paid more than four times the amount that PIT is paying.
But the lesser amount does not make this latest spate of corporate wealthfare arranged by the Allegheny County Airport Authority any more acceptable. Simply put, the public has no business having an airline’s risk offloaded onto it.
Do note that all the rah-rah-sis-boom-bah-ers “argue” (and we use that term loosely) that the demand will be so great for these flights that they’ll quickly pay for the multimillion-dollar subsidy in direct and ancillary economic benefits.
Hold the phone! If that’s the case – if the demand is going to be so grand – why should there be any subsidy? Won’t Aer Lingus be rolling in Irish soda bread dough?
The official news release goes to great pains to list the number of Pittsburgh companies that have operations in Ireland and how they stand to benefit from these regular flights. There’s UPMC, PPG Industries and BNYMellon, to name just three.
But, again, that’s not any case for taxpayer subsidies. It shows that there should be a healthy demand for such flights and that Aer Lingus stands to make a handsome profit, does it not?
Do note that the Airport Authority is such the dishonest broker that it did not see fit to mention the public subsidy in its news release announcing the deal.
And at least one official, the head of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, rationalized the corporate wealthfare by noting it came from “the state.”
That’s an unflattering boast, along the lines of “Hey, we offloaded our local welfare payment onto every state taxpayer.”
And then there’s this, from that official news release: “Aer Lingus’ nonstop service between PIT and Dublin is expected to create an economic impact of approximately $23 million per year supporting 156 jobs, according to a model by EDRG,” an economic modeling firm.
But as the Allegheny Institute has repeatedly found, such economic impact modeling is, in general, about as reliable as a two-legged reindeer helping to pull Santa’s sleigh.
Along that same line, we remind that we’ve yet to see any documentation from the Airport Authority about its economic impact claims from its subsidized British Airways flights.
It has produced no numbers showing how many foreign tourists are visiting Greater Pittsburgh because of them. As Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute, often has reminded, it’s most likely that such flights are not importing economic impact dollars but rather exporting them to foreign countries.
Expect the same lack of accounting from the incoming Aer Lingus flights – lots and lots of hyped sizzle from an overcooked and quite puny steak.
In English, Aer Lingus means “air fleet.” But given the claimed likely popularity of this Pittsburgh-to-Dublin route, coupled with the multimillion-dollar “incentive” it wrangled from PIT, it should stand for “air fleece.”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
