The news that Appalachian Air will soon cease flights in and out of Pikeville was as predictable as the sun coming up tomorrow. The second easiest prediction was that Obama would be blamed.
The prediction game is truly fool's gold, which means I'm the man for the job. Nostradomus has nothing on me, except for the fact most folks have heard of him and some actually read what he wrote. But take my word for it, I predicted this.
More than one person with egg on their face blamed the service failure on the War on Coal. That makes sense, seeing how it's become so hard to find enough lumps to keep those jets in the air. The people I feel sorry for are those city and county leaders who really thought Nashvillians were lined up a mile deep to get here. Someone should have pointed out the remaining coal barons in the area have their own jets, which is kind of why the airport is up there in the first place.
But we should not blame unrealistic expectations or poor planning or an opportunistic consultant (there's that "con" thing again) who knew gullible prey when he saw it. We should definitely blame Obama who made it impossible for locals to buy plane tickets with their SNAP card. You know what they say, regulations mess everything up.
The situation hit the county hard. A million bucks went into getting that air service and now all the magistrates have to show for their effort is a $75,000 salary and benefits package. They're so distraught they're going to invoke a 1% county-wide occupational tax and give themselves a raise.
I spoke with a flight attendant who'd worked the Nashville-Pikeville route in the first couple of months. She said things looked promising at first. But soon, it seemed folks were only flying out of Pikeville and few were flying back in.
"I knew we were in trouble the day a record executive was looking out the window somewhere near the Letcher/Pike county line. He looked up at me and said 'I heard the war on coal was bad, but I never knew it was this bad. Looks like those mountains down there have been bombed to smithereens!'"
According to her, the guy at least flew back home happy. Nashville record executives run a close second to Florida power companies in extracting our valuable resources the last few years, and he had a freshly signed contract that meant he'd own 87% of everything a local flatpicking songwriter would ever make.
So what are we going to do when we lose our direct flight to Opryland and points beyond? Glad you asked, because I have a prediction for that one, too.
Zip lines. They're fun, they're trendy, and Pikeville's already beaten all the other tourist hot spots in the county by building one. It won't be long before massive success overtakes it and you'll be able to zip from Pikeville clear to Pound Gap. And from there it's just a hop, skip and a jump to Dollywood. Where folks would rather go, anyway.
And if that doesn't work out...well...it's clearly Obama's fault.