The Piedmont Triad Airport Authority puts together an incentives package for Skybus. Geez, it’s come to this. We’re willing to hand over money for $10 flights. I won’t use the word desperate, but it keeps popping into my head.

Look, I realize the argument will be that the incentives PTIA is offering to Skybus (aside from the $300,000 Guilford County, and the $200,000 from the Greensboro Tourism Development Authority and the $100,000 from the Winston-Salem Tourism Development Authority) will essentially be user fees, since the $2.15 per-passenger payout will come from “parking, retail and other passenger service revenues.”

And yes, some of that “war chest” PTIA has collected is coming from private groups. But I find it ironic that, on the same day the airport announced this proposed deal, movers and shakers over at the One Guilford Symposium were discussing ways to leverage PTIA as the heart of economic growth in the Triad. True, hopes are high for economic development around the FedEx hub, but PTIA nevertheless sent the real message yesterday: Airport for sale.

Putting it another way, money talks, bullshit walks.