Along the Way I Gave a Speech

I just returned from a three city, 11 day trip; starting in Las Vegas, continuing to Pasadena/Burbank and then to Denver.  Along the way I saw some beautiful things.  The Pasadena City Hall, which I saw from my hotel room there, is as beautiful a public building as you’ll ever see and the Rocky Mountains, which I could see from my room in Denver, are…well…the Rockies.  I saw some creepy things, in my room at the Planet Hollywood Hotel in Las Vegas was a kimono worn by Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs (it was in my sleeping room!).  I saw some things I’d always wanted to see, such as Dodger Stadium (the 35th Major League ballpark I’ve visited).  And, I saw one of my oldest friends and a former college roommate (talented fellow named Julius Thompson, he actually won the Gong Show!)

Delivering the opening address at Global Airport Cities last week in Denver.

I also saw, through the three venues, roughly 1,300 folks, most of them ACI-NA members.  In Las Vegas I saw our Environment and Ops committee members, in Pasadena I saw our Airport Board Members and Commissioners, and in Denver I attended the Global Airport Cities conference, where I saw a number of airport directors and leading executives of key companies that supply airports and their passengers with goods and services.

Whenever I take a trip like that, I am always amazed at the energy, vision and intelligence of the airport community.  And, I am thankful to work for an industry that does so much to connect us to the world and to each other.  And, I must say, it is great to work for an industry where we don’t have to spin our good intentions, they are at the core of what we do every day.

But our ability to invest in our future, and that of our communities, is endangered.

In Denver, I gave a speech answering those in the airline community, in government and elsewhere, who say we do not need to invest in our aviation future.  Who say that our market is mature; that there will be no more growth.  Who say it does not matter that our competitors are investing in newer, more modern, efficient, facilities; they are just trying to build what we already have, not to worry.

I think these folks are wrong, and a quick look at demographics, economics and history shows they are.  The U.S. will add the equivalent of the population of Japan in the next few decades; we are, as Fareed Zakaria said, the only demographically dynamic country in the industrialized world.  New businesses and new industries are being invented and created all the time.  Our economy is incredibly dynamic, even now.  According to the World Trade Organization, 50 percent of U.S. exports, by value, travel by air.  Do none of these things matter?

What some are saying right now reminds me of what steel and auto executives said after World War II.  We know how that turned out.  By the 1970’s and 80’s Capitol Hill was crawling with people representing both industries begging for protection.  I worked there back then, I saw them.  Airlines are already doing that, working against Export-Import Bank support for sales of U.S. aircraft to non-U.S. airlines (to be clear, I am not taking sides in this one; not something we are involved in.  But it IS an example of the aviation industry feeding on itself).

I pointed out that by not investing and by concluding that the future will be devoid of growth we can guarantee that we will be right.

Afterwards, I got a lot of nice comments.  That’s to be expected, most people are polite.  But the most interesting comments I got were from those who are either from some of the parts of the world that want to supplant the US as a global aviation hub, or from many who have worked in those parts of the world.  They agree that I am right.  You see, some in the U.S. may be complacent about keeping our dominance, or perhaps figure that it is assured till the end of their own careers.  But there are a lot of folks out there who have us in their sights.

I invite you to read the speech and share your thoughts.

We have a Good ‘Green’ Story to Tell, So Let’s Tell It

Greetings from Geneva. I’m writing this sitting by Lake Geneva during a break from the Aviation and Environment Summit, which includes representatives from every sector the aviation, from governments all over the world, and non-governmental organizations who advocate for pro-environment policies. Prior to this meeting, I attended two days of ACI World board meetings. So this is my first time outside during the daylight hours since Monday and I’m enjoying it.

World aviation leaders after signing Declaration Towards Sustainable Aviation in Geneva.

One of the greatest untold environmental success stories in human history has to be aviation’s success in mitigating its impact on the environment. It now, for example, takes 70 percent less fuel to fly from point A to point B than it did 40 years ago. Aircraft noise levels have been reduced to levels that were once hard to imagine. And airports, on the ground, have put into place numerous initiatives designed to reduce environmental footprint. Airports are, have been, and will be, excellent stewards of the community’s resources.

A lot of this has been accomplished outside government mandates. Fuel efficiency, for example, is driven by economic imperatives we can all understand. And as I said, airport initiatives are undertaken by airport managers who want to operate their facilities in an effective manner and as good members of the community. A number of those initiatives were profiled in two editions of ACI-NA’s publication, Going Green and Going Greener.

And, I haven’t even gotten to the fact that aviation is the most efficient (and safest) method of traveling long distances ever invented; nor to the fact that (as shown in ACI-NA’s Economic Impact Study) aviation is a powerful economic engine which not only improves standards of living but also helps generate resources to pay for environmental protection.

Picture from top of Cathedral St. Pierre in Geneva with the iconic fountain in Lake Geneva in the background.

But few seem to know this story. Someone yesterday said perhaps it is because when we talk about these things we are either defensive or technical. And that is right and we need to stop. We need to proactively tell the positive story and we need to do so in ways that appeal to, and are understood by, mass audiences.

At the end of the meeting, the leaders of the global organizations representing the world’s major aviation sectors signed a declaration describing goals and achievements and calling on government to work with us. Angela Gittens, Director General of ACI World, signed for airports.

We have a great story to tell and a great future to build. Let’s get started!

And now I have to leave the lakeside, go back inside, and lead a workshop on airport sustainability. More to come.

Facilitate International Travel – And Watch the Economy Grow

There is a lot of talk on the campaign trail these days about jobs.  Even as the overall economy improves, many have yet to feel any positive impact.  So, talk about jobs resonates.  But the fact remains there is little government can do to directly create jobs.  In the end, the best way to do this is to invest in critical infrastructure.  Not only do you create jobs building the road or runway or railway or waterway, but those things help foster growth for years and decades.  And some candidates do seem willing to talk about this.

But there is one other way, maybe the only other way, the federal government can directly create jobs.  And that is through ensuring that our customs and border protection resources are adequate and well deployed, and by ensuring that people who want to  travel here for legitimate purposes can get a visa.

This might not be where you thought I was going with this.  It might not seem obvious.  But it is true, and it has never been more true than it is now.  I say that because the parts of the world that are growing fastest:  Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and certain parts of the Middle East, feature literally billions of people with disposable income who want to travel for business or please and who, compared with travelers from North America or Europe, spend a lot more money.  And, we are making it harder and harder for these people to come to our country.  And, those people are going elsewhere!

You might ask how this could be.  After all, we have more than 100 open skies agreements, can’t anyone who really wants to come travel freely?

The answer is no, for a couple of reasons.  First, we do have all those open skies agreements; and agreements with other countries, by and large, are more liberal than a quarter century ago.

But in reality, the skies are only as open as Customs and Border Protection says they are.  If they can staff a flight or an airport, then sure, come on in.  But if they can’t, if they do not have the resources, then those travelers will end up going somewhere else.

Even with a community able to generate the market.  Even with an airline or airlines willing to serve it.  Now I don’t want to blame Customs and Border Protection, entirely.  They are resource constrained and have to make do with what they have.  But the administration (like most before it) has not bothered to make the argument for more resources to welcome these high spending travelers (by the way, a dollar spent here by a tourist counts on the positive side of the trade balance ledger).  Indeed, even though they are now collecting fees from Canadian and other Western Hemisphere travelers that were not previously levied (and that we were told would be used to facilitate travel) the administration has not asked for an increase in its budget.  And, don’t tell me we don’t have the money, a dollar spent on facilitating travel is earned back many times over.

And, I am not letting Congress off the hook on this; they need to provide those resources.

The other problem we have is that it takes too long and is too costly for legitimate travelers from countries such as China, India and Brazil to get visas to come to the United States.  Here, I will pat the administration on the back – once.  They have announced efforts to deploy additional people to those countries and have set goals for quick visa issuance.  But even with that, it is still too difficult.  I will tell you straight up that even people in the airport business tell me they do not like coming to the United States because of the time, expense and hassle that is involved.

I was speaking earlier today to Mario Diaz, who runs the Houston Airports.  One of our smartest airport leaders.  He put it well.  The problem, he said, is that too many people look at these things as simply cost centers.  They do not look at the result.  If someone came along and said that if the government turned a switch on some shiny new machine it would result in hundreds of billions of dollars of guaranteed annual impact to the economy, and  said that the machine cost a half a billion or so each year, Congress would appropriate the money in a heartbeat.  But spending that kind of money to facilitate travel for the same result seems a bridge too far (to mix modal metaphors) because these things are seen simply as cost centers.

People, we are getting our brains beat in by our international competitors.  There are lots of reasons for that, and I will return to some of them in later posts, especially the investments they are making in critical infrastructure.  But a key reason is this self-inflicted wound.  We are not putting the effort we need to into facilitating legitimate, lucrative, travel to the United States.

We cannot blame any kind of improper subsidy or unfair trade practice.  We are doing this to ourselves.  Self-defeating is an apt description of the result.  Stupid is the better term to use to describe our whole approach.

So, let’s put the resources where they need to be.  Let’s buy this shiny new guaranteed job creating machine.

Airports Have Greater Economic Clout than the Economies of South Korea, Mexico or Switzerland

Sometimes you might wonder exactly why people care so much about debates over investment in infrastructure.  Isn’t it just all politics?  Does it matter?

A study released today by ACI-NA, Economic Impact of Commercial Airports in 2010, offers an emphatic YES.  (Go to www.airportsforthefuture.org to see the study).

See, in 2000, two very important airport infrastructure policy decisions were made.  The first, allowed local communities to raise more local resources to finance infrastructure by increasing the cap on the passenger facility charge from $3 to $4.50.  The second decided that funds sitting in the aviation trust fund and paid by air travelers should not just sit there, but should be invested.  So the Airport Improvement Program was increased and money paid by air passengers for capital improvements was spent on its intended purposes.

As a nation, we (through our Congress and President) decided to increase our investments in airport infrastructure.  Our study, the first undertaken since those policy changes went fully into effect, shows the very positive results.

America’s airports support 10.5 million jobs.  America’s airports support $1.2 trillion in economic activity, larger than the GDP of South Korea.  “Airports, Inc.” directly employs 1.3 million people, making it the second largest employer in the nation, behind Wal-Mart.  Total airport payroll equals the total payroll of the State of Michigan.  The total economic clout of airports:  8 percent of U.S. GDP and 7 percent of U.S. employment.

Those are big numbers.  But if you are still not convinced, consider this:  during that time, the jobs number increased by 56 percent.  Total payroll has gone up over 90 percent.  And the total contribution to the output of the American economy has more than doubled.  All this has happened despite the industry being devastated by the largest terrorist attack in history.  All this has happened despite the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, including spikes in the price of fuel.

This economic growth occurred because we decided to invest in our economic future.  In economic times as difficult as most of us will ever experience, those investments paid off.

That is why it is so discouraging that the recent FAA bill leaves in place federal limits on what airports and local communities can do to generate resources.  That is why it is so discouraging that the president’s budget reduces investment in airports.  That is why it is so discouraging that local communities cannot raise their own resources because of decisions made in Washington.  We are putting the future in peril, just as we are set to take off.

Some have called for a new national airline policy, designed to promote the financial strength of airline companies.  I am a strong proponent of strong airline companies.  But the purpose of the air transportation system is the movement of people and products to destinations and markets.  It is not to ensure shareholder value for airlines; that’s what airline executives and boards are supposed to do.

We do need a new national AVIATION policy, looking at all aspects from NextGen to financing airport infrastructure to the regulatory environment in which aviation must operate to the tax structure, all of it.  It must be designed to strengthen the air transportation system, not merely any one component of it.

We are now stepping back from investments in aviation at the same time as our competitors around the world are stepping up.  We are in peril of becoming what the steel industry became in the 1970’s and 1980’s, out of date and non-competitive.

We have a chance to avoid that.  Our study shows the benefits in terms of job creation and economic impact when good decisions and good investments are made.  I worry that the next study will show when the opposite happens.

Begin the Drumbeat

I recently wrote a blog about the discouraging level of debate in American politics these days, and the example I used was a recent Republican debate where a lot more time was spent on a question about contraception than was spent on one about infrastructure.  The post was not about the Republicans per se; I talked about how Democrats also use issues like infrastructure to pivot to their main talking points.

I received a thoughtful response to that post and you can find it on this site.  The question was a good one:  what, exactly, should we ask our representatives to do?

Sometimes the answer may be clear, such as when there is a specific bill that funds a project or something.  But in those cases, it is already too late and everyone will look at it through whatever preconceived notions they bring to the table.

A couple of years ago I was part of a group convened by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center to examine infrastructure issues and help chart a path forward.  The report got a lot of attention, including being held in the air by President Obama at an infrastructure event.  The Miller Center then convened a group two months ago to look at the issue and discuss the answer to the question posed by the commenter on my blog essentially.  Turns out, it is a tough nut to crack.  And perhaps nowhere more so than on the airport side.

If you wait till an authorization bill comes to the floor, it is too late.  If you call your congressman two years before, what exactly do you ask for?

Here is my attempt to answer that.

What people like the person who commented on my blog, and so many others, ought to do is constantly tell their elected and appointed leaders how important infrastructure is to their businesses, their ability to create jobs and to the quality of their lives.  This is not a sexy or silver bullet-type answer.  But what is missing is a steady drumbeat of people making sure their leaders know how important infrastructure is to the lives of the people they represent.  They need to talk about the road, the train, the mass transit, the airport.  Tell them that they recognize those things are economic engines.  You might live in a wonderful place and have a wonderful workforce.  If your community were a car then those things would be the body of the hot red sports car.  But infrastructure is the engine.  Without the engine, the hot looking car can’t run.

And, when there are occasions when economic opportunity was lost because of a lack of infrastructure, tell that story too.  Whether it was congestion or the lack of some form of infrastructure itself, our leaders need to hear these things.

Our leaders often do not understand this, not because they can’t figure it out, but because too many people take infrastructure for granted until there is some sort of catastrophic problem.  Our leaders hear all the time about health care and taxes and education and all those things.  Almost everyone thinks those things can be made better in some fashion.  Our leaders do not often hear about infrastructure in the same way.

I said it is even tougher for airports and here is why.  When you drive, you will run over a pothole or a piece of rough road occasionally.  That won’t happen on a runway though.  So people are lulled into thinking everything is ok.  If there are delays there is always someone else to blame, probably air traffic control.  No one thinks a runway is going to crack open and swallow a plane.  And that is part of the challenge.  And that is why we need to find people throughout society, throughout the economy, willing to tell the story of the importance of infrastructure to the economic and social health of our society.

So, we need to create that drumbeat out there, and we need to find drummers.  The critical role of infrastructure needs to be part of the discussion.  We do not just trade goods and services because of trade agreements or tax policy, though those things play a role.  The goods and/or services need to be shipped some place using harbors or airports.  We get through our daily lives and all we have to do not just because we have a car, but because we have roads to drive on that connect us to where we want to go.  We do not just fly someplace to do business or visit family because the Wright Brothers invented the plane. We do it because we have airports and airways that connect us to where the business and family are.

As I said in the last post, so many infrastructure discussions miss the point, and I have been as guilty of that as anyone at times.

So, my answer to the commenter is to grab a set of drumsticks and help begin this drumbeat.  Make sure the press and the politicians hear it.  And then when it is time to ask them to vote for some specific bill they won’t have to ask you to explain why.

My Mother-In-Law and Alec Baldwin?

My blog’s headline today sounds like the title of a weird short story, or an even weirder dream, but allow me to tell you how my mother-in-law made me think of the stunt Alec Baldwin pulled on that recent flight.

Because of the wonders of aviation, my wife, sons and I are all out here in Champaign, Ill., to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 90th birthday. Those are the kinds of events that don’t happen very often and due to our various schedules, we had a narrow window within which to travel out here together. Our flight was uneventful, as was the drive in from Indianapolis, and we are lucky enough to be here. And you see in the picture, she is happy we are here.

My mother-in-law at 90.

Why does this make me think of Alec Baldwin?

As you know, he forced a delay in his flight recently because he wouldn’t stop playing a game on his cell phone.

How many of the people on that flight were going to something like a 90th birthday party and maybe missed it because they missed a connection because of what he did?  What about people who were flying later in the day on that same plane which, by the time he was done, may have spent the rest of the day trying to catch up. Did anyone miss a once in a lifetime moment because of his rude, arrogant, selfish behavior?

And, his comments about the flight attendants reminding him of Catholic school teachers from the 50′s?  What’s that all about?  What an awful thing to say on so many levels.  Maybe one of those flight attendants will save your life someday.

And let’s face it, Mr B., if you weren’t rich and famous no one would turn a head to look at a middle-aged man with anger management issues and without, let’s say, matinee idol looks.

Now I’m not a big fan of all the rules about turning off electronics. I’ve forgotten once or twice and found when I landed my Blackberry was still on. But it is a rule and a very easy to follow rule. And 10 minutes or so later you can continue your game.

I often notice the rare mis-behaving passenger acts as if either he or she thinks they are the only person on the flight, or they act as if they are somehow standing up for the rest of us. Both dynamics seem to have been the case here. What a dope. I just hope no on missed an important, once in a lifetime memory.

We Agree with ATA on Some Things

I’ve been out of town most of the past two weeks, visiting the ACI Latin America/Caribbean conference in Montego Bay, Jamaica; participating in an event at DePaul Law School in Chicago with the smartest person I’ve ever met, former Virginia Governor Jerry Baliles (also had a chance to meet Rosie Andolino, Chicago’s innovative aviation commissioner); and speaking at the Western Regional Airport Property Managers meeting in Portland (and meeting with Steve Schreiber and his great team at PDX).

Sometimes when you travel a lot you miss some things back home. In this case, I missed an interesting and important speech given by my colleague and counterpart at the Air Transport Association, Nick Calio.

Much of the speech was about what you would expect from the ATA president. But there were two things I want to comment on.

First of all, Nick came out strongly in opposition to the administration’s proposal to levy a new FEDERAL fee/tax/whatever to pay for aviation infrastructure. I suppose this is not news in itself, but you might be surprised to hear that I share his concern about this idea. We have been pushing for the federal government to get out of airport financial affairs; this proposal doubles down on an approach that continues to tether airports to Washington. We want more freedom, not less!  So, I must say I agree with Nick and do not think this is the best way forward.

"We are not ready to sing around the campfire. But we have more in common than we may sometimes want to acknowledge and we ought to continue to communicate with each other to try to find a way forward."

Which brings me to my second observation about his speech. As did President Obama, Nick pointed to places around the world, like China and Dubai and Abu Dhabi, that are making major investments in airport infrastructure. Just so. We are falling behind and need to do something.

What was not mentioned, though, was that these places use passenger user fees (what we call Passenger Facility Charges) to finance this development. Now I presume Nick does not favor Chinese or UAE-style government involvement in aviation. Absent that, the ONLY way to make those investments is to give airports the ability to generate their own resources, as happens in those places.

So. It seems we may agree on not wanting the federal government to collect even more money and be any further involved in our affairs. I continue to think that airports and airlines have much more in common than we may sometimes want to admit. I will continue to call airlines on their inconsistency — wanting the federal government out of THEIR way while wanting the federal government to mess in airports’ financial lives, especially to protect airlines against competition. I will continue to say that the ATA call for a National AIRLINE policy betrays a view that the purpose of aviation is happy airlines. These are important differences.

We are not ready to sing around the campfire. But we have more in common than we may sometimes want to acknowledge and we ought to continue to communicate with each other to try to find a way forward. Especially when the presidents of ATA and ACI-NA agree that we should not impose this new FEDERAL tax and also that certain airports that happen to use a PFC-approach are worthy of emulation.

Not, Another National Airline Policy

Recently, calls have been heard for a new national aviation policy.  As is often the case, airlines morph this into calling for a new national airline policy.

I think this provides an interesting insight into the view of airlines regarding the true purpose of air transportation.  I’d always thought it was the movement of people and products to destinations and markets.  For thousands of years, that was the definition of transportation, whether by river, by sea, by land or by air.  In that case, you’d call for a national aviation policy.

"This summer’s sequence of events . . . underscores why we need a National Airline Policy." ATA's Calio

But it is clear that U.S. carriers view the purpose of air transportation differently.  They seem to view the purpose of air transportation as somehow ensuring the financial success of the carriers themselves.  Hence the call for a national airline policy.

There are other industries under financial pressure, book stores, travel agencies, banks.  But you don’t hear anyone calling for a national book store policy or a national travel agency policy or a national bank policy.  Oh, wait a minute.  We did have a national bank policy.  It was called a bail out.

Hmmmm.  Oh, now I understand!

9/11 + Ten Years

I am a believer in anniversaries, especially when they are used to not only mark something that happened in the past, but to also prepare for a better future.  July 4 is like that; we mark our independence, celebrate it, and re-dedicate ourselves to the founding propositions.

So it is as we mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (I never call them the “events” of 9/11; the Rose Bowl is an event.  I also never call them the “tragic events” of 9/11; a bad car accident is a tragic event.  It was an attack, pure and simple).

The 9/11 attacks hold a special place in the history of ACI-NA and the airport industry.  Obviously, the entire industry was impacted in one way or another, that day and every day since.  Many knew people killed in those attacks.  The 2001 joint ACI-NA and ACI World annual conference was being held on that very day, in Montreal.  Paul Benoit, the director of the Ottawa, Canada airport has written about what it was like to be there.

Everyone has a story of where they were and what they were doing.  From my last post you know that I live close enough to the Pentagon that the smell of the fire wafted through the house and my wife could hear the impact (as could my kids in their high school).  I was at work in my previous job when I heard about the first plane to hit.  Having heard stories growing up of the plane that flew into the Empire State Building many years earlier, I assumed/hoped it was the same.  When the second hit I called my wife who was scheduled to come into town for lunch with me that day (my office was 5 blocks from the White House).  I told her what happened, that it was a terrorist attack, and that these people like to do coordinated, simultaneous attacks; one on Washington was almost a certainty, so don’t come into town for lunch.

About a half hour later we heard about the plane that went into the Pentagon.  There were also reports of one that went into the National Mall, and explosions at the State Department and Old Executive Office Building (these reports, delivered by trusted anchors, were later deemed false, but if you were sitting at 19^th and K that morning you didn’t know).  Traffic was snarled.  By 2:30, figuring the attacks were over and with Metro not running, I decided to walk home, about 9 miles.  Luckily, a co-worked, came by and offered me a ride (his name was Ed Ross, he died earlier this year, a wonderful guy, the type of person you want to be with in a tough situation).  Those 9 miles took 2 ½ hours to cover by car and we watched the Pentagon burn the whole way.  Watching TV the rest of the day and night the enormity of it all became apparent.  If you read my last post you also know what I thought about that night.

This is the first time I’ve ever written any of this down, and it will be the last.  For while anniversaries are for remembering and honoring the past, they are best if they serve as a pivot to a better future.  One of the many things I like best about the job I have now is being part of an industry that shows the terrorists every single day that they failed in what they tried to do.  We will and do move on.  We are not going to be afraid of them or what they want to do to us.  Because they will want to scare us till the end of time, and there is no future worth having living in such fear.

Looking back, al Qaeda and the 19 terrorists succeeded in killing 3,000 people and bringing down the towers (I drive by the re-built part of the Pentagon every day on my commute).  But they failed in every other way.  Al Qaeda is all but a spent force in many ways, though there will always be people who wish us harm.  None of bin Laden’s larger strategic goals came to pass, just the opposite.  Indeed, the Arab Spring shows that bin Laden is likely to be consigned to history’s dust “bin” (pun intended), to borrow Ronald Reagan’s phrase.

And every day, 2 million people travel through America’s airports on vacations, business trips, personal trips or whatever.  Many go to places bin Laden hoped to keep them from ever visiting.  Yes, we take our shoes off and have rejuvenated the plastic baggie industry with our liquids.  But those are minor things, also destined for the dust bin.

I am so proud every day to be part of an industry that shows the terrorists, day in and day out, that they did not win, they cannot win and they will never win.

The Shutdown Viewed from the Heartland

Sometimes when things are really intense in Washington it is good to spend time outside the Beltway to see and feel what’s going on in the country.  That’s what I’ve been doing this week.

I began the week in Lexington, Ky., visiting with their excellent airport director Eric Frankl and having a chance to see their beautiful airport. Tuning in to both the national and local media it was plain that the FAA shutdown is an important story outside the Beltway. People are concerned about the jobs and the implications for our national transportation system. They have many questions, many about safety. (I always assure them that the safety of the system is being maintained, while also pointing out that many of the cancelled projects would have safety benefits  It is also a good chance to point out that these projects are paid for from dedicated revenue and that shutting down the FAA does not cut the deficit.)

Wes Hargis, Inside Tucson Business

I was in Lexington when my blog about the airlines raising fares to include the amount that would have been covered by the temporarily suspended ticket tax was posted. It generated a lot of comment, especially when on Monday night, the Los Angeles Times did a piece on it.

So, on Tuesday morning when I was touring the Louisville airport with their veteran airport director, Skip Miller, the blog came up in several conversations, including during a tour the great folks at UPS gave me of their operations center. The subject came up not just during the tour, and not just because of the blog.  It is clear that the FAA is a concern of a number of people; it is also clear that no one “out here” understands why or how we could have come to this point. The FAA should be the basic business of government and to not have it authorized seems hard to understand.

I am in Champaign, Ill., now, visiting my wife’s family (they are a four-generation University of Illinois family).  Yesterday, I was on a local station here, WDWS 1400, as part of a daily talk show, Penny for Your Thoughts, with a local broadcast legend, Jim Turpin.  Jim was the broadcaster for Illinois sports teams for more than three decades and still does a daily, two-hour talk show. We had a wide-ranging discussion and a number of callers. We talked about the FAA shutdown, also about security and a number of other important topics. The shutdown has been covered here in the local press.

To be honest, many people wonder if we can’t even keep the FAA open, what hope do we have for a solution on the debt crisis (by the way, I recommend a piece written on the CNN web site by Fareed Zakaria about the debt limit and how it is a crisis of our own making). After 20 extensions, I was pretty sure we’d seen everything. Turns out, that was just the pre-game show.

We at ACI-NA have been very active these past several days working with our members to collect stories about the impact of the shutdown and getting that message to the Hill and to the press. We also use the opportunity to talk about the wonders performed by airports on a daily basis and what could be possible if we remove the Nixon-era economic shackles placed on airports by federal law. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is famous for saying never let a good crisis go to waste.  The FAA shutdown never should have happened, but we are using the “opportunity” to tell the airport story and set the stage for better days to come.