Report: Over 100 Airports Could Close Due to Federal Budget Cuts

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Comments (5)

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1. Chris says:

   August 5, 2012 at 10:11 pm

   Wahhh??? These aren’t all “small” airports! What would airlines do if they were shut down??

   My guess, in the end ticket prices would merely skyrocket for flights in and out of these destinations. They can’t shut the airports down, that would be horrible for the city economies!

   Reply
   • Ed Jeszka says:

     August 5, 2012 at 11:33 pm

     Chris, you are correct. Not all “small” airports. The sad fact remains that the FAA is a “bloated” governmental agency. A few years ago they held a managers/supervisors meeting in Atlanta. It cost around 5 million bucks. They said it was to review the new contract. The contract had been in effect for months and the meeting was held right before Christmas. A real drunken party. You can only guess at the amount of fraud, waste and abuse that goes on within the FAA.

     If Mr. Huerta really wanted to be a truly proactive administrator worth a pinch of salt he would probably be able to come up with the biggest part of the budget shortfall by stopping the phony enforcement actions taking place daily, stopping the perks given to managers in the form of bonuses, stop the wasted travel, review the currency and DPE authorizations and finally just get rid of the dead weight at 800 Independence Ave, including offices like the FAA-AAE that was started with good intentions but has been found to be distributing instructions on how to circumvent the OSC request for information on FAA failures and simply questionable actions. How about the Head of the Western Hemisphere or some such ridiculous title making somewhere around $200,000 as a reward while her spouse is taking down a pretty hefty amount as an FAA lawyer. And then the wife of one of the White House right hand men to the president made chief counsel without any aviation experience. I think you can call this a scare tactic from within the FAA and as such should immediately eliminate Mr. Huerta from consideration for a five year term as Administrator. His first move should have been to tell the public that he will examine every area possible before he got down to closing 106 towers. Why not eliminate that many useless thugs in AVS that have had more than 5 complaints about their integrity or their abuse of authority and leave air traffic alone.

     If we had knowledgeable, competent managers and supervisors within the FAA this scare tactic would have certainly been avoided. Cut the waste and non-productive spending that has no impact on aviation safety. That would make up a rather large part of the mess they are in. Then they can stop moving people around for disciplinary reasons and then paying the freight. So many ways and so little time.

     Reply
2. HenHouse says:

   August 6, 2012 at 6:07 pm

   My personal opinion? A ploy by the Feds to gain support for raising taxes. Just a shell game.

   Reply
3. Richard Wyeroski says:

   August 7, 2012 at 2:14 am

   Hi All:

   This is a complete ploy to scare the public. The economic impact of “SHUTTING DOWN” 94 regional airports in will severely up set the economy.

   The real problem is FAA Fraud, Waste and Abuse the is out of control.

   As Ed clearly lays out, the FAA Flight Standards is simply out of control.

   This is nothing more the the FAA Misleading Congress. The people responsible should be removed and put in jail

   Richard Wyeroski

   Reply
4. Jim says:

   August 16, 2012 at 6:38 pm

   As a retired ATC I say that the first big event Daytona 500 when the rich people cannot fly there friend into DAY or cannot get onto Aspen to ski they will demand they pass a budget. Money talks bull&$%# walks

   Reply