(Atlanta Journal Constitution) — If you’re fed up with flights packed with passengers and crowded overhead bins, try flying from Atlanta to Macon. The 20-minute, roughly 80-mile flights are operated with nine-passenger planes that are usually nearly empty. Sometimes, no one’s on board but the two pilots. What keeps the flights going? A $1.4 million annual federal subsidy that, based on 2009 passenger counts, amounted to $464 for each round-trip booked on the route.Despite the sparse loads, four small aviation companies are vying for the subsidy contract, which is up for renewal this fall by the U.S. Department of Transportation. But the DOT could decide to end the subsidy, imperiling Macon’s tenuous status as a spoke from the world’s busiest airline hub.
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