Editorials Tout ATA "Smart Skies" Initiative

The airlines have begun stuffing seatbacks with anti-general aviation propaganda... appropriately enough, right next to the sick bags. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association tells ANN it has been anticipating such stealthy maneuvers as the FAA funding debate spools up.

So far, editorials have appeared in two in-flight magazines, Northwest's NWA WorldTraveler and United Hemispheres, under the headline "Smart Skies" -- which not by coincidence is also the namesake of the airlines' political initiative.

What's not so smart is the idea -- a dramatic oversimplification -- of blaming GA for all their woes, namely air traffic delays. As ANN reported, the airlines' trade organization, the Air Transport Association, has also started running ads on the CNN Airport Network, making the same claims. (Those ads were quickly countered by the Alliance for Aviation Across America, of which AOPA is a member.) 

"If only it were that simple," said AOPA President Phil Boyer. "At the top 10 busiest airports in the United States, the FAA's own data for all towered airports show that general aviation makes up less than four percent of all aircraft operations."

What are the real culprits? A June 5 front-page story in USA Today said about 40 percent of the delays were caused by weather. Other factors were late-arriving aircraft, maintenance and crew problems, and flight coordination at airports. The article also noted flight delays are at their worst in 13 years, under an air traffic control system that was created for the airlines.

AOPA states the extensive cost is due to the airlines' hub-and-spoke system... and it makes business sense for them to shift the blame and costs onto somebody else.

Seatback literature is currently aimed at corporate aviation, claiming that business jets aren't paying their fair share. If that sounds familair, it's because FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has said much the same... but in this case, the words come from Andrea Fischer Newman, Northwest's senior vice president of government affairs.

"Every ticket you buy helps subsidize corporate aviation," she writes.

The truth, says AOPA, is that airline passengers and freight users pay a portion of the total costs of operating the ATC system as a whole, similar to buying a postage stamp. And no airline or airline trade group has assured travelers their ticket prices would drop by even a penny if the airlines got the tax breaks they wanted.

"AOPA members are in a unique position. They fly small planes as pilots and pay fuel taxes. They fly on airliners as passengers and pay ticket taxes," Boyer said. "We've always been paying our fair share."

FMI: www.aopa.org