Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken have urged Congress to maintain the Essential Air Service program that supports air service to International Falls and several other northern Minnesota airports.

Klobuchar told The Journal last week that as a part of the Senate Commerce Committee, she has been working with Delta Airlines management and the Falls International Airport Manager Thor Einarson to help ensure that quality air service is maintained in International Falls.

A week earlier, Delta gave a 90-day notice of termination of service to the airport. Air service will continue as Delta is locked into a contract until another airline takes its place. The announcement also affects airports in Thief River Falls and Brainerd and Delta’s future in Bemidji and Hibbing is also uncertain.

Klobuchar said she has talked to and sent a letter to Delta CEO Richard Anderson urging him to assist in negotiations with Great Lakes Aviation, which has expressed interest in bidding to take over the air service in International Falls.

“He’s been to Minnesota before, so he knows how important this is,” said Klobuchar of Anderson. “As we negotiate with Great Lakes, Delta, even if it’s service is discontinued, has the ability to help us.”

Delta gets financial support from the federal Essential Air Service program which helps cover higher fuel costs of serving an outstate town. The EAS was enacted in 1978 to guarantee small communities commercial air service and support airlines in markets that would otherwise be unprofitable.

Klobuchar said bills in Congress that would phase out EAS would not apply to International Falls because it is so remotely located and a great distance from a regional hub.

“It would be hard to say that EAS service would not be granted here,” she said.

Franken, too, has launched an effort to maintain the EAS program for the Falls airport and to ensure that quality air service continues.

Franken said EAS funding is now more important than ever to preserve air service in Minnesota communities served by Delta Airlines, which has indicated a desire to pull out of Bemidji, Thief River Falls, Brainerd, Hibbing, and International Falls.

Klobuchar and Franken both acknowledge that they know the true value of air service to the community as they have flown to International Falls on the service recently.

“Oftentimes I drive, but to International Falls I have taken the flight a number of times personally, so I know how important it is,” she said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack’s views of the EAS and how it impacts the Falls airport were unavailable.

Cravaack voted in May to eliminate in three years the Essential Air Service program, which assists the Falls International Airport in providing service. It also cuts the Airport Improvement Program which also provides funding to the local airport.

At that time, a Cravaack spokesman told The Journal that the congressman wants to look closely at the EAS program and has been named chairman of an EAS working group. The working group is an off-shoot of the full conference committee, which is made up of representatives and senators who will iron out the differences between the House and Senate version of the FAA authorization bill.

Last week, a House bill that would have extended the FAA’s operating authority proposed to strip $16.5 million in subsidies for air service to 10 rural airports within 90 miles of another airport hub, or that averaged subsidies of more than $1,000 per passenger.