So…..let’s return to something we have been saying here for a long time.

It is a fact that resources available for needed airport infrastructure investment are in decline. The government grant program and passenger facility charge mechanism are stagnant or declining. Most airports can still access the capital markets but debt isn’t always the best way to go. This at a time when competitors around the world are investing heavily.

As we have written to the Simpson Bowles Commission, the Senate Gang of 6, the so-called Super Committee and others, getting Washington out of the business of restricting the ability of communities to invest in airports can not only provided needed resources it can also, by reducing reliance on Washington, help take pressure off the federal budget and deficit. A group of large airports made a similar argument in their letters to the Super Committee.

I once wrote a blog saying the president can appeal to those who want more investment in infrastructure, those who want to create more jobs and those who want to reduce federal spending and the role of Washington by supporting a move to allow localities to raise their own resources for airport infrastructure. To some, this may not sound like a good State of the Union topic. To me, it seems like a natural.

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.

Well, a little later the game started to get out of hand and I flipped back and caught a question on….infrastructure!  YES!  So I listened, hopefully.

What I got instead, was a series of answers repeating the candidates’ basic economic talking points “jobs, lower taxes, less regulation, etc.”  Former Speaker Newt Gingrich did address the actual question for a few moments, but otherwise it didn’t happen. They drifted off into other things and the questioner did nothing to bring it back.

I don’t want to pick on the candidates, they are doing what is best for their campaigns, and frankly Democrats do it too.  I DO sort of want to pick on the questioner who asked a question and did little to bring the discussion back to infrastructure.

Here’s the problem, as I see it:  Politicians of both parties seem to see infrastructure as simply an excuse to talk about whatever their pet issue might be.  They may see it as an excuse to swerve into taxes and regulation as the debaters did the other night.  Sometimes, they see it as a way to talk about how many jobs a project might create, which happens on both sides though perhaps more often on the Democratic side.

"Rather than understand the need to invest in infrastructure, the U.S. government actually stands in the way of airports and local communities who want and need to finance infrastructure."

Don’t get me wrong, the jobs that are created by the project itself are very important.  And the tax and regulatory issues are important ones.  But the real purpose of transportation infrastructure is to move people and products to destinations and markets.  That is how you build a competitive society, how you build an economy that can grow.  You don’t lay pavement just to create a job that day.  You lay it to move goods and people for years and decades to come; to build a long-term competitive economy.

That kind of talk is totally absent in our national infrastructure discussion.  I don’t think the Chinese or the Emiratis, for example, are putting transportation projects in place because they want to reduce the unemployment rate.  They do it because they know their futures as competitive nations depend on it.

To be fair, that’s what we did in this country when we built our system of airports and when we built the interstate highway system.  Some have declined to accept the comparison to what is happening overseas, saying they are just catching up in those places to what we have already done.  But it is that kind of complacency that helped bury the steel industry when others were modernizing factories and technology and our industry was just relying on trade restrictions and dumping petitions to protect itself.  We do not want to go down that road.

How we stack up does matter, as I argued in San Diego at our annual conference.  But we will never get there as long as our political leaders, of both parties, use infrastructure as an excuse to veer into partisan talking points on taxes or jobs or whatever.  We need to tell it like it is, tell the truth about WHY we build infrastructure, and then act accordingly.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 14,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

National Botanical Garden

I’m taking some time off around the holidays, staying close to home, though I have spent a lot of time thinking about travel.  Perhaps that is because I spent much of the last three months on the road, or perhaps because we have had a lot of house guests, or maybe because of all the tourists I see in DC these days (DC is an underrated Christmas town, by the way, the attached photo was taken at the Botanical Gardens near the Capitol).

Maybe it is because most of the Christmas movies I’ve watched these past several days include some component of travel (did you know that “Love Actually,” a fun movie with a Christmas theme,  begins and ends at the airport?!?!  Like so many other great experiences!).

Anyway, it seems like people have a yearning to travel.  They like the freedom of it, the people they see and meet, the experiences they have.  Mark Twain once said that travel is “fatal to prejudice.” I think (and hope) he has a point!

This led me to think of the places I visited this past year.  If you are reading this it means you probably either like to travel or make your living in the industry, or both, so I’d guess your list looks much like mine.  I may miss a place or two, but in 2011 I traveled to:

For vacation:  Iceland.

To visit family and friends:  Champaign, IL; Toms River, NJ; Sayreville, NJ (my hometown and the hometown of Jon Bon Jovi and Dule Hill); Cincinnati, OH; Tucson, AZ; Cape Cod, MA; Columbus, OH

For work (you will see I need better work-life balance!):

Overseas destinations:  Lisbon, Portugal; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Marrakech, Morocco; London, UK and Abu Dhabi, UAE

In Canada: Montreal and Ottawa (note to self: go to Canada more often in 2012, use that NEXUS card!)

In the US:  Atlanta, Cleveland, Cincinnati, San Diego, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Phoenix, Tucson, Dallas, San Antonio, Kansas City, St. Louis, Louisville, Lexington (KY), Boston, Denver, New York, Chicago, Portland (OR), Memphis, Nashville, Savannah.  This doesn’t count places I drove through or airports I may have used to get somewhere else.

There were other places I went to along the way that don’t fit neatly into those categories, for example I went to Marion, OH driving home from a family visit and to Abilene, KS and North Bend, OH while in those areas for work, to visit presidential grave sites (Harding, Eisenhower and William Henry Harrison respectively).  I went to Charlottesville, VA to go to a football game and visit the University of Virginia.  While traveling to the cities listed above in the various categories I did visit ballparks and dead presidents.  An especially moving experience was to visit the Civil Rights Museum at the old Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King was killed.  And, yes, on that same trip we did go to Graceland!

No one loves a quiet day at home more than me, I’m having one right now!  I always have more than enough to read and it is almost always either baseball or football season so there is almost always something to watch.  But nothing beats getting out and seeing new places.  And I find that when visiting old ones, it is like one of those movies where you get more and more of the scenes each time you watch them.

I’ve already booked trips in the first three months of the year to New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Hong Kong and Geneva (Switzerland), with much more to come, so 2012 will be at least as busy.  While business travel is not terribly glamorous, contrary to popular wisdom, I am lucky to experience so many places.  And even luckier to work in an industry that makes so much travel, and prejudice eradication, possible.

Happy New Year!

This was on vivid display this past Friday at the annual Wright Memorial Dinner in Washington, D.C. This yearly event honors someone who has married passion and ability to do great things and shape the aviation industry. This year, the awardee was Gen. Thomas Stafford, an astronaut, pilot

Former Astronaut Thomas Stafford

and leader whose imprint is embedded on so much aviation history. Four former winners of the Wright Trophy were there, Gene Cernan, Norm Mineta, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. Those folks personify what I’m talking about. And I was so pleased to see some of the younger folks at ACI-NA who were in attendance who were so thrilled to be in the presence of these great leaders.

Recently, I was speaking to a friend of mine who is seen as a leader in the global aviation and tourism industry. I asked how she came by her passion for what she does. She talked about her dad who was a pilot in rural Canada, flying with him when she was young, learning to fly herself and embarking on a consequential career in our industry. So hers was almost inherited, almost romantic in nature.

I came by mine later, when I worked in state government and saw how aviation can lead to economic growth and opportunity. To me, aviation is the single most important development in economic history and it is exciting to play a part in it.

So my passion came later, is maybe somewhat more “practical” than “romantic” in nature, but it is there nonetheless. I strongly believe passion is an indispensable value, and passion is included among ACI-NA’s Core Values.

So yes, I think about passion all the time. And yes, occasionally, it is the “other” kind. Hey, you need some of that too!

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama

It is well-known that the U.S.-Canada border is the longest peaceful border in the world.  When you especially consider the borders China, for example, has with both Russia and India and the tensions caused in those places, you can see how fortunate we are here to have a neighbor such as Canada.  I must admit, I did not know a lot about Canada before I took this job and had only traveled there a couple of times.  I now go to Canada several times a year, have a NEXUS card, and have visited seven of the 10 provinces (still have Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland to go).  It has become a favored travel destination.

With all the security problems and challenges the U.S. has to face, it has always amazed me how little common sense is used in border policy with Canada.  For example, if you fly from Montréal to Denver, you and your bags are deemed safe and secure; indeed, you pass through U.S. customs and immigration in Montreal.  So, for all intents and purposes, for the Montréal to Denver flight, over 2,000 miles of the United States, you are considered a domestic passenger and you and your bags are considered secure.  But once you land in Denver, while you can walk to your connection to Grand Junction, your bags must be re-screened.  It makes no sense, it is a waste of resources and diverts attention from something that might actually be a threat.  I am told that nearly 10 percent of the bags screened in Minneapolis are re-screened bags from Canada.  It is nuts.

But through the recently announced initiative this bag re-screening requirement, something ACI-NA has led the fight to get rid of for some time now, will be gradually eliminated.  This is great news for travelers, and even better news for the security of our aviation system.  There are a number of other key initiatives in the Obama-Harper agreement that, I hope, will one day lead to our two countries being considered a single perimeter.

Next, I would like to see this requirement lifted for flights from the European Union, and perhaps from other key allies.  These were important recommendations of a federal commission I served on in the last administration, appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.  Called the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Commission, we made these and other common sense recommendations to enhance national security while ensuring that legitimate travel was well-facilitated.  During that commission, my seat mate was J.W. Marriott, Jr., CEO of the Marriott hotel chain.  Marriott put a great deal of energy and passion into the commission’s work, though I am sure he had been on lots of commissions before.  We had a number of good conversations about these and other issues; he’s a good man.  Marriott announced his retirement yesterday, which was big news in the Washington area as Marriott is a locally based company, and it was big news in the travel business, for obvious reasons.  I certainly wish him well and thank him for his courtesies to me.

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.

More than most such meetings, it was great to see so many people from the entire airport world, all in one place.  One such person is Jim Bennett, former CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority who is now ABU Dhabi airport’s CEO.  Abu Dhabi has great ambitions for it’s airport as a global hub and in Jim they have the right person to make that happen.

Also had a chance to spend almost a half hour with John Pistole, TSA Administrator. It is kind of funny to go 6,000 miles to meet with someone who works just about 5 miles from my office but it was a good chance to get together and discuss a number of outstanding issues and we took advantage. I am particularly hopeful about his Risk Based Security initiative; that is what he spoke to the conference about and I also focused on it during my remarks.

A very interesting, humbling session was one moderated by ACI Europe Chair Declan Collier on disaster recovery.  The CEO from Narita was there and talked about how Japan recovered from the earthquake and tsunami.  He reminded everyone that the fear from the result of the nuclear plant disaster was just as important.  Brussels airport was there talking about responding to heavy snows and the ash cloud crisis, and the head of CANSO, the equivalent of ACI World for air navigation services providers, gave a global perspective on dealing with disasters and other large events.

As I had to get back for meetings in Washington, the trip was shorter than I would have liked, four nights away from home, two spent sleeping on planes and two at the hotel.  I can tell you right now, my new favorite amenity is a shower in an airport lounge.  I transited in Frankfurt on both ends and had pretty long layovers.  After hitting the showers I felt like a new man!

You can’t go to Abu Dhabi, though, without remarking about the place itself.  Several pictures are included in this post.  The beautiful Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is the largest

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

in the world that is not located in Saudi Arabia.  It has 82 domes and is in a great setting.  On my last night, as I was being driven  back from the gala dinner to prepare to catch my flight I got to witness an amazing light show emanating from the Mosque.  The show was in honor of the upcoming (Dec 2) UAE National Day, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the country.

Display in the lobby of Emirates Palace hotel honoring UAE National Day

I have written previously about how I like to be in a country when it celebrates a big day of national significance and I have been lucky enough to do this many times in several countries.  It gives you a sense of the place, from May Day in Soviet Moscow to Hungarian Independence Day in Budapest (when I marched  in the parade)  to St. Anthonys Day in Lisbon this last summer, I have found that the national personality comes out at such times.  There were plenty of signs, flags and decorations everywhere and it seemed to be much on the minds of everyone.  I’m glad I could be there at this time and only regret that I could stay longer.

Yes, a gold vending machine in the Emirates Palace hotel.

Abu Dhabi is certainly an “over the top” kind of place, though much less so than Dubai.  Still, Abu Dhabi is the place where the planned UAE extensions of the Louvre, Guggenheim and Cleveland Clinic will be based.  There is one very small island where a development is going up, a couple of dozen towers.  As many people will live in those towers as live in all of Iceland!

Yes, I did see a Gold vending machine.  It was located in the Emirates Palace hotel.  Opulent doesn’t begin to describe this place.  No, I didn’t stay there (though my son does when he goes to Abu Dhabi on business, I have a new admiration for him!).  The gala dinner was held there and though I had to leave early to catch my plane I could get a good enough feel of the place.  It is amazing, huge, beautiful, gracious and over the top all at the same time.  I hope the pictures give you a little sense of the place.

The Emirates Palace Hotel

Artwork honoring the Arab Spring

You are reminded regularly that you are “not in Kansas anymore” when you visit a place like Abu Dhabi.  Constant references to the visionary founder and current visionary president; we don’t even talk about George Washington that way.  Heck, we even got this during the recorded tour as part of one of those Big Bus city tours (I try to take one of them whenever I am in a new city and don’t have much time, or simply to become oriented).

All the construction cranes, only a small fraction of what I saw in Dubai two years ago, but a lot of them. The flyover on Monday afternoon, right over downtown Abu Dhabi.  Four fighters doing a series of maneuvers, exciting, exhilarating and chilling at the same time.  I’m sure they were practicing for National Day activities, but right over downtown?  Nothing the FAA or Pentagon would ever go for, but no one is going to tell the leaders there they can’t have this kind of show.

On the ceiling of hotel rooms is a plaque that points the way to Mecca for prayers.

It is hard to describe places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai.  It would be difficult to imagine living there, but I have enjoyed visiting.  If you behave and use some common sense, there is a sense of freedom.  If you step a bit out of line you might quickly see another side of the place.  It is a place of great energy, and a place where many people just don’t seem to want to move very fast.  So many contradictions.  Fascinating.

If you get a chance, go.

It gave me a good chance to talk about all the great things airports are doing to care for their passengers and help them on their way.  Everything from putting on more staff and volunteers, to children’s play areas to free Internet to music programs.  It also gave me a chance to talk about how airports have stepped into the breach as airlines have withdrawn from more and more of the customer care functions they once performed.  Most of the time, the interviewer was surprised about all that airports do, so it was a great chance to educate them and their audiences.

The frustrating part was the feeling I got that the interviewers believed airports are responsible for things like lost bags and a bad security checkpoint experience.  I talked about how we work with our airline, and government, partners to make things better, but that the responsibility for these things lies elsewhere.  I did that in a subtle way of course, didn’t want to seem defensive.  But the lack of understanding out there of what airports do is really striking.  We have never done a good job of telling our story.  A lot of people have no idea we do many of the good things we do, and they blame airports for the missteps of others.  That is why we have embarked on a major public relations campaign.

We have a great story to tell.  But we need to start telling it!