On October 1 the federal cap on airline subsidy per passenger at Escanaba, Houghton, Iron Mountain, Ironwood and Sault Ste. Marie drops from $1,000 to $850. That is written into the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. Meanwhile the fiscal 2026 spending law, as the department applies it, says the cap does not currently apply. Both are true, and understanding why is the whole story.
Essential Air Service pays a carrier to fly a route the market would not support. The five Upper Peninsula airports in the program cost about $30 million a year combined, by our addition of the rates in the Department of Transportation’s May 2026 report.
What the 2024 law says
The statute, 49 U.S.C. 41731, makes a community eligible only if its subsidy per passenger stays under a cap. The 2024 act rewrote that cap in steps: under $1,000 for the fiscal year that begins before October 1, 2026, and under $850 for the fiscal year that begins after September 30, 2026. Communities less than 175 miles from a large or medium hub have a lower $650 line. The $850 test is measured on fiscal year 2027 data, October 2026 through September 2027, so, in our reading, the earliest the department could act on it is late 2027.
The Secretary of Transportation can waive the $650 tier and the ten-passenger-a-day minimum. The statute gives no waiver for the $1,000 or $850 line. A community that exceeds it can lose eligibility.
Why it is switched off right now
The fiscal 2026 appropriations act, Public Law 119-75, lifts some eligibility requirements for the program. The department’s March 2026 order for Waterloo, Iowa states it plainly: many eligibility requirements, including the per-passenger cap, “do not currently apply.”
A continuing resolution signed September 2 funds the government through December 11. Whether the suspension of the cap carries into fiscal 2027 appropriations is the open question, and it is the one that decides whether $850 ever bites. TV6’s April series on the program framed the threat as the budget request, $141 million against $513 million enacted. That is real, but the cap is a separate mechanism and the two TV6 pieces we reviewed did not mention it.
Where the U.P. airports stand
The rows we read in the department’s report list annual subsidy rates, not subsidy per passenger. Dividing each airport’s annual subsidy by twice the FAA’s 2024 enplanements, our estimates are Sault Ste. Marie about $94, Iron Mountain about $129, Houghton about $135, Escanaba about $157, and Ironwood about $544.
Ironwood boarded 7,091 passengers in 2024, the lowest of the five by a wide margin, and it is the only one within sight of the line.
Subsidies at three of the five airports have fallen since the October 2024 report, and two have risen. Escanaba’s new SkyWest contract, Delta Connection to Detroit and Minneapolis on a CRJ550, is listed at $5,361,460 a year, down from $6,899,725 in the October 2024 report. Iron Mountain’s new SkyWest contract is $5,015,812, down from $7,068,428. Sault Ste. Marie is $4,984,855. Houghton, on SkyWest as United Express to Chicago, is $6,969,646. Ironwood, on Key Lime Air, is $7,709,208 through September 2027.
How to read your airport’s subsidy
The department posts a Subsidized EAS Report every few months listing every community, carrier, hub, frequency and annual rate. Each contract has a selection order on regulations.gov under a docket number that starts with DOT-OST. The order gives the bids, the winning rate by year, and the contract dates. Escanaba’s is Order 2026-1-19, Houghton’s is 2024-12-9, and Iron Mountain and Sault Ste. Marie are both in Order 2026-1-15.
Named sources: 49 U.S.C. 41731 as amended by the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, Public Law 118-63, section 561; U.S. Department of Transportation Subsidized EAS Report, May 2026 and October 2024; DOT Order 2026-1-19 (Escanaba) and Order 2026-3-12 (Waterloo, Iowa); Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (Public Law 119-75), as cited in DOT Order 2026-3-12; Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (H.R. 6500); FAA calendar year 2024 commercial service enplanements; TV6 Investigates, April 22, 2026.
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Sources, credits, and reporting details
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AI assistanceResearched and drafted with AI tools. Reviewed and approved by editor Keegan O’Brien.
Verification note: Sep 26, 2026: source rows added. Live text corrected the same day: cut "no vote this fall can change it", "every year" rider claim and verbatim rider quote, Sawyer sentence and show-cause claim; TV6 figures $142M/$514M corrected to $141M/$513M; "subsidies falling" narrowed to three of five; Ironwood carrier named per DOT report; CR sentence narrowed; headline softened. Per-passenger figures are our own calculation. RESOLVED Sep 27: added row 12, Public Law 119-75 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026), confirmed directly on GovInfo — real, dated Feb 3, 2026, matches DOT's order citation. Rows 3-5 (DOT orders) re-verified by opening each docket page directly on regulations.gov rather than trusting the Sep 26 fetch-tool read; abstracts confirm carrier/route/term details in all three. The underlying order PDFs force-download and are CORS-blocked from in-browser viewers, so their verbatim text (including the Waterloo order's exact eligibility-suspension quote) was not independently re-read at the byte level this pass; that quote was fetch-tool-sourced on Sep 26 and is flagged as such on row 4.
Primary sources
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49 U.S.C. 41731, Essential air service program eligibility (as amended by Pub. L. 118-63, sec. 561) — Cornell Legal Information Institute (U.S. Code text)
Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Cornell LII stands in for the Code; the Public Law text itself was blocked. Section 561 cite is second-hand (LII amendment note: "Pub. L. 118-63, sec. 561(a)(1)-(3) (May 16, 2024)"). Waiver limits from FY2027 (no more than 2 consecutive years / 5 in 25) are not in the article. "Earliest late 2027" is our reading, now stated as such.
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U.S. DOT Subsidized EAS Report, May 2026 — U.S. Department of Transportation
Published Jun. 4, 2026. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Publication date is the landing page "last updated" date. CALCULATED: the five rates sum to $30,040,981 (article: "about $30 million"). Read through a fetch tool; opened in Chrome but the table is too small to read from a screenshot. Marquette (Sawyer) absence not checked; that sentence was cut.
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U.S. DOT Subsidized EAS Report, October 2024 — U.S. Department of Transportation
Published Sep. 30, 2024. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Sault Ste. Marie, Iron Mountain and Escanaba fell; Houghton and Ironwood rose. Article previously said subsidies "are falling, not rising"; rewritten to three fell, two rose. Read through a fetch tool.
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DOT Order 2026-1-19 (Escanaba EAS, SkyWest) — U.S. Department of Transportation
Published Jan. 29, 2026. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Read through a fetch tool. The order shows a higher second-year rate ($5,522,304), so the $5,361,460 figure is the May 2026 report's listed rate; article now says "listed at". RESOLVED Sep 27: opened the docket page directly on regulations.gov (not a fetch tool). Abstract confirms: SkyWest Airlines (Delta Connection), Escanaba EAS, Jan 1 2026-Dec 31 2027, 12 round trips/week to DTW and/or MSP, 50-passenger CRJ550. The underlying PDF attachment forces a download with no in-browser viewer and is CORS-blocked from third-party viewers, so the verbatim rate figures were not independently re-read from the PDF text itself; the docket abstract is the direct-primary-source confirmation obtained.
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DOT Order 2026-3-12 (Waterloo, Iowa EAS) — U.S. Department of Transportation
Published Mar. 17, 2026. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Read through a fetch tool. The appropriations act text itself was NOT opened; the verbatim rider quote the article carried was removed. RESOLVED Sep 27: opened the docket page directly on regulations.gov (not a fetch tool). Confirms order title "2026-3-12 Order Selecting Air Carrier," posted by DOT Mar 17, 2026, Waterloo/SkyWest, matching the article and claim above. Same PDF access limitation as row 3 applies: the attachment force-downloads and is CORS-blocked from in-browser viewers, so the verbatim eligibility-suspension quote was not independently re-read from the PDF text itself in this pass; it was read via a fetch tool in the Sep 26 pass per this row's earlier note. Public Law 119-75 itself (the act DOT cites) was independently confirmed as real and correctly dated — see new row 12.
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DOT Order 2024-12-9 (Houghton EAS, SkyWest) — U.S. Department of Transportation
Published Dec. 13, 2024. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Supports: Houghton: SkyWest as United Express to Chicago with a "Bombardier CRJ-200 (50-passenger)".
Read through a fetch tool. Order 2026-1-15 (Iron Mountain, Sault Ste. Marie) was not opened; it is supported only by the report listing. RESOLVED Sep 27: opened the docket page directly on regulations.gov (not a fetch tool). Abstract confirms: SkyWest Inc. (United Express), Hancock/Houghton EAS, Feb 1 2025-Jan 31 2028 three-year term. Matches article. Same PDF access limitation as row 3.
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FAA Calendar Year 2024 Commercial Service Enplanements (ACAIS) — Federal Aviation Administration
Published Sep. 15, 2025. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
CALCULATED by us, not sourced: annual subsidy / (2 x enplanements) = SSM $94.12, IMT $128.72, Houghton $134.90, Escanaba $156.58, Ironwood $543.60. The method (doubling enplanements) is our own.
Additional reporting
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TV6 Investigates: future of air travel in the Upper Peninsula, Essential Air Service program — WLUC TV6
Published Apr. 22, 2026. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Article said $142M and $514M; corrected to TV6's figures. Read through a fetch tool; second TV6 piece (Apr 21) also reviewed with no mention of the cap.
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White House: Congressional bill H.R. 6500 signed into law — The White House
Published Sep. 2, 2026. Accessed Sep. 26, 2026.
Read through a fetch tool. Whether the CR carries the cap suspension was NOT confirmed; that claim was removed.
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Public Law 119-75, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 — U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo)
Published Feb. 3, 2026. Accessed Sep. 27, 2026. public-domain.
RESOLVED Sep 27: added to close the flag that the appropriations act text itself was never opened. Confirmed directly on GovInfo (not a fetch tool) that Pub. L. 119-75 is real, dated Feb 3, 2026, and is the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7148), matching DOT's order citation exactly. Did not open the full roughly 700-page statute text to locate the specific EAS eligibility-waiver clause; the claim in the article rests on DOT's own order language (also verified directly, see row 4), not on our own reading of the statute.
Photo and media credits
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CRJ-550, Delta Connection (Commons, Duncan Kirk) — Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Sep. 26, 2026. CC BY 4.0.
Supports: Aircraft photo credit: Duncan Kirk, CC BY 4.0.
Commons API shows a Duncan Kirk CRJ-550 Delta Connection file at CC BY 4.0; exact file behind the site copy not identified.
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SkyWest CRJ200 United Express (Commons, InSapphoWeTrust) — Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Sep. 26, 2026. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Supports: Aircraft photo credit: InSapphoWeTrust, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Commons API shows InSapphoWeTrust SkyWest United Express files at CC BY-SA 2.0; exact file not identified.
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DeltaCountyAirportM35.jpg (Commons, Royalbroil) — Wikimedia Commons
Accessed Sep. 26, 2026. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Supports: Delta County Airport photo credit: Royalbroil, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Author and licence confirmed by Commons API.
