The graphic (website) version of this newsletter can be accessed at:
http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/newsletter416.htm
Quote of the Week: "You gotta realize the frustration - you can look out
the
window and you can see, there's the gate, and if you let us off the plane,
we can walk there" and "They had to open the door every 20 minutes just so
we could get air,"comments by JetBlue passengers who was stuck on plane
for
11 HOURS!!! Some in congress are calling for a Airline Passenger Bill of
Rights
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter
#416.........................................................................February
18, 2007 Past newsletters can be accessed at:
http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/ACNewsmenu.htm
The PASSUR air****t
flight
tracking system at many major U.S. air****ts
http://www.passur.com/sites.htm
(you must have Java installed to view it). If you want to get the
newsletter
sent to you every week, sign up to AviationWatch. Bill Mulcahy
rockaway@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Kept Passengers On JetBlue Plane For 11 HOURS!!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
As Bill Sees It: (Editorial): Congressman Calls For Airline Passenger Bill
Of Rights!!! I'm happy to see that airline passengers are up in arms about
the way they were treated during the recent snowstorm. JetBlue kept their
passengers trapped on their planes for as much as 11 hours!!! This is
apparently nothing new for the airlines. Only six weeks ago passengers on
an
American Airlines plane had a similar experience, which prompted a woman
named Kate Hanni to call for congress to pass a passenger bill of rights.
Congress (of course) dropped legislation after the industry agreed to a
voluntary 12-point "customer service" plan. The recent snowstorm showed
that
the airline "voluntary" plan was just a ruse to get the heat off the
airline's political hacks. We'll see what happens now. You can read the
story and see a video on the story here. Anti-aviation noise (and air
pollution) activists may be approaching aviation from a different angle
than
passengers, but I think we have a common enemies; the FAA, the airlines
and
their bought-off political enablers who listen only to what the airlines
want. What we need to do is develop our own AVIATION POLLUTION VICTIMS
BILL
OF RIGHTS!!!!
Airline Passengers Start A REAL Organization And Blog To Fight For
Rights!!! Thanks to the Internet a "real" airline passenger association
and
blog has been created. I say real because there is a group called the
Airline Passengers Association (which I believe now is called the
"International" Airline Passengers Association) that seems more interested
in selling insurance and travel discounts than being concerned about
airline
passengers. This group used to be the first one called when the media
wanted
to get the opinion of the air travelers on the latest airline outrage. Now
however, thanks to the Internet and people like Kate Hanni, a REAL
organization of airline passengers has formed!!! Last week I wrote about
an
"anti-noise" organization that very carefully avoided even mentioning
aviation noise. The International Airline Passengers Association belongs
with this kind of bogus organization. If it weren't for the Internet these
kind of deceptive groups would exist and flourish without ever being
exposed
for the phonies I believe they are. Maybe the media will now call Kate
Hanni
when they want to know about what airline passengers think.
FAA's Blakey Wants To Increase Taxes On Aviation: The FAA and the airline
industry are coming to the realization that there is only so much air****t
and pollution they can jam into communities and have apparently decided to
try to regulate expansion by taxing it more. I say it's about time.
Britain
recently tripled the fuel tax on aviation in an effort to try to reduce
the
greenhouse gases the airline polluters produce. Of course, getting the
airlines to pay more taxes is being vigorously fought by the aviation
polluters and there political agents. It is not expected to pass congress.
11 Hour JetBlue Nightmare For Passengers Sparks Petition Drive!!! NEW YORK
(AP) - JetBlue Airways Corp. tried to calm a maelstrom of criticism
Thursday, after passengers were left waiting on planes at a New York
air****t
for as long as 11 hours during a snow and ice storm. The airline said 10
incoming and outbound flights at John F. Kennedy International Air****t
were
"significantly delayed" with customers on board during Wednesday's storm.
Reasons included congestion, frozen equipment and an effort to keep planes
ready to go in case the weather broke, said JetBlue spokesman Bryan
Baldwin.
"They had to open the door every 20 minutes just so we could get air,"
said
Sean Corrinet, 29, who was on a flight bound for Cancun, Mexico. It was
delayed for at least eight hours, Baldwin said.
http://www.komotv.com/news/national/5842366.html
Congress To Get Air
Passenger Bill Of Rights!!! To Cheryl Chesner, 26, "unacceptable" was
hardly the word for the 11 hours she said she and her husband, Seth, 27,
spent trying to take a JetBlue flight to Aruba for their honeymoon. "It
was
the worst. It was horrific," she said. Cheryl and the other passengers
stuck
in hell at JFK may be the latest recruits to a web site devoted to ending
this kind of misery. The Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of
Rights
is commited to solutions for promoting airline passenger policies that
forward first and foremost the safety of all passengers while not imposing
unrealistic economic burdens that adversely affect airline profitability
or
create exhorbitant ticket price increases. The campaign, led by Napa real
estate broker Kate Hanni (pictured at right), includes a petition drive
going, and the web site carries blogs by suffering passenger from near and
far. One for example, is Hanni's account of a "coalition of airline
passengers" traveling on American Airlines flights from San Francisco to
Dallas recently who were "stranded for over 8 hours with no food or access
to bathroom facilities." The coalition has roped in Rep. Mike Thompson,
(picture above right) a Northern California Democrat, who said today he
would introduce legislation incor****ating many of the issues raised by the
coalition.
http://www.townhall.com/News/NewsArticle.aspx?contentGUID=af4f6f5e-c487-4124-a010-13ea1c23ad39
USA Today: Airlines Hot Topic In Global Warming Debate!!! Just a few
decades from now, people may look back at the early 21st century with both
fondness and horror as the Era of the Cheap Airline Flight. They may wax
nostalgic for the days when visiting distant relatives and taking
vacations
in exotic locales were easily affordable for the m*****. But they also may
be alarmed at how long it took the world to realize the havoc that
unfettered air travel was wreaking on the world's climate. Jet engines
burn
kerosene, which gives off carbon dioxide (CO2), a leading cause of global
warming. Airline flights today make up less than 3 percent of man-made CO2
emissions, though they also spew nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, soot, and
water va**** that may double their total warming effect on the climate. Now
two factors are conspiring to make airline travel a hot topic in the
global-warming debate: If current trends continue, the number of airline
tickets sold per year will double to more than 9 billion by 2025,
according
to a new study by the Air****ts Council International. At the same time,
experts see no viable jet-fuel alternative to kerosene. While some modest
fuel-conservation measures still can be taken, more and more people are
concluding that fewer flights may be the only way to cut airline emissions
significantly. In Britain, a prosperous island country that makes heavy
use
of air travel, CO2 emissions from flights will surpass those from
automobile
trips in the next six to eight years, says Alice Bows, a senior research
fellow at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University
of Manchester.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-02-12-flying-clean-skies-emissions_x.htm
FAA Blakey Wants To Raise Taxes On Aviation Fuel: FAA Administrator Marion
Blakely finally unveiled the Bush Administration's detailed plans for
financing FAA over the next decade, a sweeping array of much higher fuel
taxes and a raft of new or sharply higher fees for everything from getting
a
pilot's license to registering an aircraft or getting a new model
certificated by a manufacturer. Couching the new fee proposals as
necessary
to fund the Next Generation air traffic control system, Blakey touted
announcement of the plan as "A big day for aviation...the taxpayers and
the
flying public." FAA even showed re****ters a slick new video, with a number
of different business jets prominently featured, that attempts to position
the new fee system as the only viable choice to avoid aerial congestion
and
air****t gridlock in the future. Blakey is scheduled to present her plan to
Congress this afternoon during a hearing before the House aviation
subcommittee. Organizations representing business and general aviation
have
been waging a concerted effort on Capitol Hill against the FAA plan. That
campaign is expected to increase in intensity now that details of the
financing proposal are finally available. It is believed Blakey's plan
will
face strong congressional opposition, particularly from House members.
While
Blakey tried to appear upbeat about the need to adopt the plan during her
remarks Wednesday morning, even agency officials acknowledge privately
that
there is almost no chance Congress will sign off on her proposal.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/BLAK02147.xml
N.Y. City: Delays And Increased Pressure To Expand LaGuardia Air****t:
WA****NGTON, Feb. 17 - The Bush administration wants to auction off all
landing rights at La Guardia Air****t, hoping to use the free market to
improve sharing of a scarce resource. But the airlines that land there say
the plan amounts to government expropriation of their property and will
lead
to higher ticket prices. The debate resembles a dispute over rent control,
with the airlines arguing that they should be allowed to continue to buy,
sell or sub-let to each other their landing rights, known as slots. They
will probably fight the plan in Congress. But the federal government says
that the slots are a public resource, and that regulations should not give
too much advantage to the airlines that have had them for years. The
Federal
Aviation Administration asserts that auctioning the slots will ensure that
they are distributed in a way that will be better for consumers. The
dispute
has been developing since 2000, when Congress passed a law intended to
gradually lift decades-old limits on traffic at La Guardia and other busy
air****ts, by phasing out so-called slot rules. But when the Trans****tation
Department began approving new flights to La Guardia in 2000, the airlines
added 300 a day, on top of the existing 1,100, causing the average delay
for
all arriving flights to grow to 38 minutes from 16 minutes. And planes
leaving La Guardia late arrived at their destinations late, so the delays
rippled through the national system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/nyregion/18laguardia.html?ref=nyregion
@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Aviation News Stories This Week
After nasty flights, passengers want a bill of rights
By Michael Martinez
San Jose Mercury News
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/nation/16704600.htm
(MCT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. - It's been six weeks since Kate Hanni, her family and
several thousand other fliers were stranded on the ground on American
Airlines planes for up to eight hours - forced to endure foul restrooms
and
stale air and given little food and water. Six weeks, and they're still
angry.
Now, Hanni is pu****ng Congress to pass an airline passengers' bill of
rights - an effort others have unsuccessfully tried. The bill would
include
limiting to three hours the time an aircraft can sit on the tarmac, and
notifying passengers within 10 minutes of flight delays, diversions and
cancellations.
The Napa, Calif., woman has gone to Wa****ngton once and plans to return
next
week to meet with lawmakers, including Rep. Mike Thompson from her
district,
to rally sup****t. Several other members of Congress have promised to back
the effort, Hanni said.
"I think it's in the airlines' best interests, as well as the
passengers,'"
said Thompson, a Democrat, who plans to introduce legislation in the
House.
"If a law was already on the books, we wouldn't have this situation
today."
Airlines successfully beat down a similar bill after a Detroit snowstorm
in
1999 left thousands stranded on Northwest Airlines jets. Congress dropped
legislation after the industry agreed to a voluntary 12-point "customer
service" plan.
But sup****ters of a bill of rights claim carriers have failed to follow
their own guidelines. And the events of Dec. 29, they say, prove it.
It was not just a nightmare for passengers bound for Dallas-Fort Worth
International Air****t, but also for American, the nation's largest
carrier.
With a series of thunderstorms sweeping across Dallas, the airline was
forced to send its planes to other air****ts - including Austin, Texas; San
Antonio; Little Rock, Ark.; and Tulsa, Okla. - to wait out the weather.
Airline officials acknowledge that 121 American and American Eagle flights
were diverted that day, including 67 that waited on the tarmac for more
than
three hours. Some, including Flight 1424 from San Jose and Flight 1348
from
San Francisco, which carried Hanni, her husband and two sons, were
grounded
for at least eight hours.
Time passed, but planes didn't budge. Inside the cabins, conditions
worsened.
"Other airlines were busing people where they needed to go," said Hanni, a
real estate broker, "but the American jets sat without food and with
toilet
problems of varying degrees - they either just stopped working or were
overflowing.
"I went forward at about the seventh hour, and the pilot was coming out of
the restroom. I said, `I need to go in there.' He was holding the door
shut.
He said, `Go in there at your own risk.'"
When passengers got hungry, flight attendants passed out bags of peanuts
and
tap water from restrooms. Sue Petersen of Morgan Hill, Calif., trying to
reach Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for a family reunion cruise, said an elderly
woman sitting next to her asked for something to eat after their flight
had
sat for five hours.
"The flight attendant sold her a snack box - for $4," Petersen said.
American has called the events of that day an "anomaly," saying that most
thunderstorms pass through the region and allow planes to resume their
routes. Had planes pulled into gates, spokesman Tim Smith said, crew
members
could not have returned to work if the weather cleared because of union
and
Federal Aviation Administration work rules.
With most planes flying full because of the holiday period, it's likely
passengers would have been stranded for several days.
Instead, Smith said, operations managers opted to wait, "hoping against
hope
that this is the last thunderstorm wave and that we'll get them on to
where
they're going. The reality is, it never happened.
"If there's something we did wrong, it was probably not explaining the
process."
But it went far beyond that, passengers said. When they were finally
permitted to deplane, there was little information available.
"The air****t was closed, there was no food and nowhere to stay because
there
was a bowl game in town," said Melissa Moe, who was stranded in San
Antonio.
"Many people slept on the floor of the air****t. Some elderly people were
helped out by the Red Cross and given shelter and food because American
did
nothing."
Some passengers were told they could pick up their luggage at baggage
claim,
but after waiting 2 1/2 hours, it never arrived. Most were left on their
own
to find food and hotels.
"And you should have seen what it was like Saturday morning," said Susan
Robertson, who was trying to reach New Orleans for a vacation. "Your jaw
would have dropped. There were lines of people and no information from
anybody at the airline, no flights listed on the board.
"What they did to us was shameful, and they're not taking responsibility
for
what happened."
American said it has revised its policy and will no longer allow aircraft
to
remain on the ground for more than four hours. It also is developing
"automation tools" to inform managers when passengers have been left on
planes for too long.
The airline has sent out more than 4,600 letters of apology and given
travel
vouchers worth $250 or $500, depending on how long a passenger's plane was
grounded.
But Hanni and others aren't satisfied. That's why she's collecting
signatures in sup****t of a passenger's bill of rights on her Web site
(http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com).
More than 2,100 have signed it.
Congressman Thompson said he's not interested in legislation that would
punish American or other airlines; he wants to ensure that passengers are
protected in the future.
"In no way, shape or form is this retaliatory," he said. "The situation on
this flight was terrible. I don't believe it's anybody's fault, but some
bad
judgments were made. I want to make sure we can pass a bill that can get
signed into law and give a greater degree of comfort to airline passengers
that doesn't damage the airlines."
---
SELECTED PROPOSALS
The full list is on the Web site http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com
Under the proposed Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, U.S. airlines would
have to:
Notify passengers within 10 minutes of flight delays, diversions and
cancellations via announcement in air****t or on aircraft.
Return passengers to the terminal gate when their plane sits on the tarmac
for longer than three hours.
Provide for the essential needs of passengers during air- or ground-based
delays of longer than three hours, including food, water, sanitary
facilities and access to medical attention.
Compensate "bumped" passengers or those delayed by flight cancellations or
postponements of over 12 hours by refunding 150 percent of ticket price.
Respond to passenger complaints within 24 hours. Resolve all complaints
within two weeks.
---
Flying the cleanly skies?
Posted 2/12/2007 7:47 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-02-12-flying-clean-skies-emissions_x.htm
By Gregory M. Lamb, The Christian Science Monitor Just a few decades from
now, people may look back at the early 21st century with both fondness and
horror as the Era of the Cheap Airline Flight. They may wax nostalgic for
the days when visiting distant relatives and taking vacations in exotic
locales were easily affordable for the m*****. But they also may be
alarmed
at how long it took the world to realize the havoc that unfettered air
travel was wreaking on the world's climate. At least one travel industry
official predicts that in 30 years, long-distance flying will be
undertaken
only by the wealthy as ticket prices rise dramatically - and the number of
flights shrinks pro****tionately - to curb the emissions of greenhouse
gases
created by air travel.
Jet engines burn kerosene, which gives off carbon dioxide (CO2), a leading
cause of global warming. Airline flights today make up less than 3 percent
of man-made CO2 emissions, though they also spew nitrogen oxide, sulfur
dioxide, soot, and water va**** that may double their total warming effect
on
the climate.
Now two factors are conspiring to make airline travel a hot topic in the
global-warming debate: If current trends continue, the number of airline
tickets sold per year will double to more than 9 billion by 2025,
according
to a new study by the Air****ts Council International. At the same time,
experts see no viable jet-fuel alternative to kerosene. While some modest
fuel-conservation measures still can be taken, more and more people are
concluding that fewer flights may be the only way to cut airline emissions
significantly.
In Britain, a prosperous island country that makes heavy use of air
travel,
CO2 emissions from flights will surpass those from automobile trips in the
next six to eight years, says Alice Bows, a senior research fellow at the
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of
Manchester.
Four years ago, the British government pledged to cut greenhouse-gas
emissions by 60 percent by midcentury. As the difficulty in achieving that
goal has become more evident, air travel has become the whipping boy for
environmentalists. Prime Minister Tony Blair was criticized for flying to
Miami for a Christmas holiday, and Prince Charles was viewed as a
hypocrite
for boarding a jet to Philadelphia to accept an environmental award. Last
summer, the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, called taking a vacation
by
airline "a symptom of sin" in which "people ignore the consequences of
their
actions." The bishop vowed he would not board an airplane in 2007.
Asking the British people to cut down on air travel is impractical, Mr.
Blair says. But the government has just upped a tax on airline flights
from
£10 to £40 ($19 to $76), depending on the length of the flight, in the
name
of reducing air travel and CO2 emissions.
For years, airline companies have worked to increase fuel efficiency (and
coincidentally reduce CO2 emissions) to counter the skyrocketing price of
kerosene. New aircraft, such as Boeing's 787 Dreamliner due out in the
summer of 2008, will be made of lighter composite materials and employ
other
fuel-saving measures. But these improvements won't be nearly enough to
offset the predicted increase in demand for air travel (including air
freight).
Other fuel-saving suggestions include pulling planes from the gate to the
runway with their engines only idling, reducing the fuel used to taxi into
position for takeoff.
Modernized air-traffic control systems could reduce the number of planes
circling air****ts waiting to land or take off, says John Meenan, executive
vice president of the Air Trans****t Association of America, which
represents
the nation's airlines. Commercial airliners today follow ground beacons to
their destinations that result in indirect and inefficient zigzag routes,
Mr. Meenan says. A new air traffic management system could yield a 12 to
15
percent improvement in environmental performance.
"It's a matter of making the investment to make that happen," he says.
In the long term, biofuels, possibly ethanol made from switch grass or
biowaste, could provide an alternative. But no one knows when that could
happen. "One of the realities we're dealing with in aviation is that there
are no alternatives" to CO2-emitting kerosene fuels, Meenan says.
The European Union has proposed incor****ating aviation into its
carbon-emissions trading plan by 2011, a so-called "cap and trade" scheme.
That would allow airlines to "buy" the right to emit carbon from other
industries, such as power generation, which could sell carbon credits if
they reduced their emissions below their cap.
People aren't going to give up airline travel easily. For long-distance
travel, there's really no practical replacement. "We think the free
movement
of people and goods is a pretty fundamental right," says Graham Lancaster,
a
spokesman for Britain's Federation of Tour Operators.
The effect of a drastic reduction of airline flights on the world economy
would be significant. Aviation drives about 9 percent of world GDP, Meenan
says.
"The countries that would be hit hardest would be developing countries,
because they're more dependent on tourism," says Justin Francis, CEO of
responsibletravel.com, an online travel agency specializing in ecotourism
based in Brighton, England. In half of the developing countries, tourism
is
one of the top three industries, he says.
"My view is that we must fly less," Mr. Francis says, adding that the
ecoconscious might decide to take only one big vacation flight each year
and
take shorter nonflying vacations the rest of the year. Hopping around
Europe
every few weeks on the low-cost airlines that have sprung up in recent
years
would have to end, he says.
"The world is coming to realize the biggest threat we face is carbon
emissions," Francis says. "Governments are under pressure to take action.
One of the places they will look is the airline industry because it is
such
a rapidly growing source of emissions."
Flying the cleanly skies - USATODAY.com
Airlines at La Guardia Fight Bush Administration Proposal to Auction Off
Landing Rights
By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: February 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/nyregion/18laguardia.html?ref=nyregion
WA****NGTON, Feb. 17 - The Bush administration wants to auction off all
landing rights at La Guardia Air****t, hoping to use the free market to
improve sharing of a scarce resource. But the airlines that land there say
the plan amounts to government expropriation of their property and will
lead
to higher ticket prices.
The debate resembles a dispute over rent control, with the airlines
arguing
that they should be allowed to continue to buy, sell or sub-let to each
other their landing rights, known as slots. They will probably fight the
plan in Congress.
But the federal government says that the slots are a public resource, and
that regulations should not give too much advantage to the airlines that
have had them for years. The Federal Aviation Administration asserts that
auctioning the slots will ensure that they are distributed in a way that
will be better for consumers.
The dispute has been developing since 2000, when Congress passed a law
intended to gradually lift decades-old limits on traffic at La Guardia and
other busy air****ts, by phasing out so-called slot rules.
But when the Trans****tation Department began approving new flights to La
Guardia in 2000, the airlines added 300 a day, on top of the existing
1,100,
causing the average delay for all arriving flights to grow to 38 minutes
from 16 minutes. And planes leaving La Guardia late arrived at their
destinations late, so the delays rippled through the national system.
"It's insane, the demand out there," said Pasquale DiFulco, a spokesman
for
the ****t Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the air****t.
La Guardia handled 400,000 flights last year, compared with 378,000 for
Kennedy International, although La Guardia is 560 acres, compared with
5,000
acres at Kennedy. Kennedy has two sets of parallel runways; LaGuardia has
two runways, and they cross each other, so they cannot be used
simultaneously.
To fix the problem in 2000, the government stepped in with a series of
"tem****ary" limits on flights into La Guardia, which have changed slightly
but are still in force. But last week, the administration proposed
maintaining a cap on the total number of flights and auctioning the slots,
as part of a complicated bill on a new national financing mechanism for
air
traffic control.
Marion Blakey, the F.A.A. administrator, said the purpose of the auction
was
"using the market to ensure we're making the most of this very popular
resource in New York."
The language in the administration's bill is not specific, but Nancy D.
LoBue, the deputy assistant administrator for aviation policy, said that
the
auction would be done in a way that gives new competitors a chance of
getting slots at La Guardia.
The bill calls for the ****t Authority to run the auction. Mr. DiFulco said
his agency might also try writing provisions into the gate leases or
instituting congestion charges, requiring airlines to pay more at peak
periods. La Guardia, however, has very few off-peak periods; most of the
day
it is near its limit, defined as 75 scheduled flights per hour, plus 6
nonairline flights. The airlines dislike the nonairline flights, and argue
with the precise overall limit.
And they dispute the authority of the F.A.A. to tinker with control of the
slots.
For example, last August the F.A.A. said it wanted a rule at La Guardia
that
would prevent airlines from obtaining monopoly power over certain routes.
But the airlines say that since their business was deregulated in 1978,
the
F.A.A. should not be in that business. The F.A.A.'s role should be limited
to safety and efficiency, the airlines say.
They also assert owner****p rights. Delta, for example, says it paid Pan Am
for slots when Pan Am ceased operations, and then upgraded the Marine Air
Terminal at La Guardia to handle its planes.
But the airlines are not united in this view. The Air Carrier Association
of
America, which represents small carriers, complained that at the moment,
small carriers have only 20 slots, while "many legacy carriers have that
many slots in single markets." The group also complained that some big
carriers were hogging slots, by flying many small planes to major hubs,
when
they should be making fewer trips with bigger planes, opening slots to
their
competitors.
At the F.A.A., Nan Shellabarger, the director of aviation policy and
plans,
said there was broad consensus that some controls were necessary, and that
Congress had "tolerated" the F.A.A. stepping in to reimpose landing quotas
in 2000, and thus was likely to approve some system now. She said that the
Secretary of Trans****tation had authority beyond the F.A.A. administrator
to
regulate flights.
An auction, F.A.A. officials say, would not allocate landing rights on a
purely economic basis. Just as the current system does, it would probably
include provisions to encourage service to rural areas, since companies
flying small planes to those places might be less able to compete in
bidding
against airlines flying bigger planes.
Sametta Barnett, the director of government affairs for Delta, said that
when that provision was first enforced, "we weren't thrilled with it." But
now, she said, "Our bread-and-butter is small communities. We're glad to
do
it."
The F.A.A.'s proposal is a small section of a huge bill introduced by the
Bush administration to change the way travelers pay for air traffic
control.
That proposal faces tough questioning in Congress, but some action is
likely, because the existing taxes expire on Sept. 30.
|
