Payments for Essential Air Services — CFDA 20.901

Essential Air Service obligations at $2.35 billion

USAspending.gov records $2,347,305,481.30 in obligations under CFDA 20.901. Eight hundred seventy-four awards produce that stock. A simple average is about $2.69 million per award — consistent with route-year carrier payments rather than airport construction grants. That average is a quotient of two packet totals, not a typical ticket subsidy or a per-flight cost.

The assistance-listing title is PAYMENTS FOR ESSENTIAL AIR SERVICES. CFDA 20.901 is the identifier. Other DOT aviation listings tagged under different CFDA numbers are not mixed into the $2.35 billion. Combining those codes would invent a combined aviation total this packet does not contain.

50 recipients across 35 states

Fifty recipients share 874 awards, or about 17.5 award records per recipient on average. Splitting $2.35 billion evenly would assign about $46.9 million per recipient. That density is a carrier-contract pattern: many award-year or route rows per airline, not one row per airport. The packet does not list the 50. Recipient count is the organizational headcount, not a census of rural airports or passengers.

Thirty-five states in the geographic count leave a large share of the map uncoded. Essential Air Service follows eligible communities, not population. Place-of-performance amounts are on the program table.

Award count is not a flight or airport count

Among aviation listings, 20.901 is a mid-volume file: 874 rows against 50 recipients. Contract-year rows and amendments can inflate award count relative to unique routes. Award count is therefore a weak proxy for “number of EAS communities.” Recipients (50) tell you how many named organizations sit on the extract; awards (874) tell you how many assistance rows were stored.

The packet does not report enplanements, frequencies, or airports served. Citing 874 as flights or airports would be a unit error. Keep the units straight: dollars, awards, recipients, states.

Obligations versus carrier-payment outlays

The $2.35 billion is an obligation total from USAspending.gov. Outlays — cash paid against Essential Air Service awards — are not in the packet. A carrier can show a large obligation stock while service months follow a later calendar. Deobligations and upward adjustments both move the total. A remaining-balance question is an outlay question this extract does not answer.

Use CFDA 20.901 to size this Payments for Essential Air Services listing in the assistance file. Do not use it as a flight-schedule dashboard. Those series live elsewhere. This page reports the obligation book tagged 20.901.

What the 20.901 tables omit

The Essential Air Service hub lists award-backed obligations from USAspending.gov. It is not an airport directory, not a timetable, and not a passenger-count file. Series that never appear as assistance awards will not show up in the $2,347,305,481.30. That omission is definitional rather than a gap in the 874 award rows.

Place-of-performance on 35 states is a coding field. Read the program page before treating those cells as equal shares. Recipient dollars, if shown on the hub, are still obligation amounts, not cash already paid for completed flights.

Where the 20.901 table lives

The program page overlays these four facts. The all-programs index ranks 20.901 among other assistance listings. Agency pages show awarding-agency rollups that may include this CFDA among other transportation listings. For 20.901 only, start on the program page.

CFDA 20.901’s 874 awards spread $2,347,305,481.30 across 50 recipients and 35 states. Quote award count as a record count, recipient count as the organizational headcount, and dollars as obligations from USAspending.gov. About 17.5 award records per recipient is the density story on this listing. Outlays remain a separate column. Source: USAspending.gov assistance awards. Read 20.901 as a carrier-payment book: 50 organizations, 874 rows, 35 states, and about 17.5 awards per recipient. The $2.35 billion remains an obligation stock on USAspending.gov, not a flight or airport count.

Questions

How much is obligated for Essential Air Service payments?

USAspending.gov records $2,347,305,481.30 in obligations for CFDA 20.901. SpendingVault indexes 874 awards, 50 recipients, and 35 states. The figure is an obligation sum from assistance awards, not an outlay and not a flight count. CFDA 20.901’s $2.35 billion is the USAspending obligation stock.

How many awards does CFDA 20.901 carry?

The listing shows 874 awards against 50 recipients, or about 17.5 award records per recipient. A simple average is about $2.69 million per award. Award count is not a flight or airport count. Recipient dollars are on the program page.

How many organizations receive 20.901 awards?

The extract lists 50 recipients. Those are organizational recipients on assistance awards tagged 20.901, typically air carriers rather than airports or communities. Geographic coding covers 35 states. The packet does not name the 50.

Is $2.35 billion already paid to air carriers?

Not necessarily. Obligations are commitments. Outlays are payments. CFDA 20.901’s indexed total is the obligation stock from USAspending.gov. This page does not report cash drawn, remaining balances, or flights operated. The $2.35 billion on 874 awards is the obligation figure.