Fri, Mar 19, 2004
Airline Bashed GA Via In-flight Magazine
AOPA President Phil
Boyer (pictured below) and Northwest Airlines Chief Executive
Officer Richard Anderson will meet in two weeks to discuss an
editorial Anderson recently published for his airline's in-flight
magazine, charging that airline passengers subsidize general
aviation operations through fees and taxes on airline tickets.
"Mr. Anderson's editorial contains numerous misleading or
seriously flawed statements about GA's financial contributions to
the national air transportation system," said Boyer. "It has
angered GA pilots and aviation enthusiasts. But AOPA has
deliberately withheld its rebuttal to the editorial, working
instead for constructive discussions with Northwest."
Since first learning of the editorial, AOPA has focused on
setting up a meeting between Boyer and Anderson in order to clear
the air. AOPA refrained from calling for a public letter-writing
campaign while efforts to set up the meeting were under way. Pilots
and aviation enthusiasts wrote anyway. They spontaneously began
besieging Northwest Airlines with letters and e-mails protesting
the tone and the misstatements in the editorial.
Anderson has now agreed to a meeting on April 2 to explain his
concerns.
"That's fine," replied Boyer, "I plan to discuss our concerns
and find some common ground in our respective views."
This all stems from a dispute
between Northwest and the airport authority at Minneapolis/St. Paul
International Airport (MSP). The Metropolitan Airport Commission
also runs six reliever airports that improve efficiency for
Northwest at MSP by moving most GA traffic elsewhere, and uses some
of the funds collected at MSP for improvements at the
relievers.
"Mr. Anderson's attack on general aviation is unfair,
unwarranted, and, for the most part, untrue," said Boyer. "And by
publishing his attack in so public a forum, he has raised what
should have remained a regional skirmish into a nationwide
battle.
"I hope that by speaking directly with him, AOPA will be able to
convince Mr. Anderson that GA and the airlines are two sides of the
same coin and that he should just as publicly set the record
straight."
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