FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
2003
2003 - 0772.PDF
T OF RE •RTISER COlV EDITORIAL +44 (20) 8652 3842 Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, UK Fax +44 (20) 8652 3840 email flight.internatiOMl@rbi.co.uk Editor Murdo Morrison +44 (20) 8652 4395 murdo.morrisonSirbi.coM Editorial Assistant Andrew Costerton +44 (20) 8652 3835 andrew.costerton@rbi.co.uk News Editor Andrew Doyle +44 (20) 8652 3096 andrew.doyle@rbi.co.uk Commercial Aviation Editor Max Kingsley-Jones +44 (20) 8652 3825 max.kingsleyjones@rbi.coMk Defence Aviation Editor Stewart Penney +44 (20) 8652 3834 stewart.penney@rbi.co.uk Operations/Safety Editor David Learmount +44 (20) 8652 3845 david.learmounWrbi.co.uk Business Editor Alexander Campbell +44 (20) 8652 3990 alexander.campbell@rbi.co.uk Business & General Aviation Editor Kate Sarsfield +44 (20) 8652 3885 kate.sarsfield@rbi.co.uk Reporter Justin Wastnage +44 (20) 8652 liiljustin.wastnage@rbi.co.uk Technical Reporter Michael Phelan +44 (20) 8652 3843 michael.phelan@rbi.co.uk Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss +44 (1237) 471960 tim@spaceport.co.uk Senior Technical Artist Giuseppe Picarella +44 (20) 8652 Wi4joe.picarella@rbi.co.uk Editorial Artist Tim Brown +44 (20) 8652 8043 tim.brown@rbi.co.uk EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor Christina Mackenzie +33 (1) 64 23 68 89 christina.mackenzie@rbi.co.uk Israel Correspondent Arie Egozi +972 (3) 9413132 AMERICAS Washington DC Office Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 Americas Editor Graham Warwick +1 (703) 836 3448 graham.warwick@rbi.co.uk East Coast Editor Paul Lewis +1 (703) 836 3084 jpaul.lewis@rbi.co.uk West Coast Editor Guy Norris +1 (949) 252 8971 Fax +1 (949) 252 8972 guy.norris@rbi.co.uk Brazil Correspondent Jackson Flores Jr +55 212439-6062 Fax +55 212349-6090 fubar@uol.com.br Canada Correspondent Brian Dunn ASIA/PACIFIC Singapore Office Fax +65 6789 7575 Regional Managing Editor Nicholas lonides +65 6780 4311 nicholas.ionides@rbi.co.uk Deputy Asia Editor Brendan Sobie +65 6780 4309 brendan.sobie@rbi.co.uk Regional Reporter Leithen Francis +65 6780 4314 leithen.francis@rbi.co.uk Australia Civil Aviation Correspondent Emma Kelly +61(8)92861724 Fax+61(8)92861724 emmajkelly@bigpond.com Australia Military Aviation Correspondent Peter La Franchi +61 (0) 419 246 620 Fax +61 (2) 62312795 nulka@ozemail.com.au COMMENT EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Group Production Editor Graeme Osborn +44 (20) 8652 3828 Group Art Editor James Mason +44 (20) 8652 4994 Chief Sub-Editor Chris Thornton +44 (20) 8652 4997 Deputy Production Editor Jackie Thompson +44 (20) 8652 3850 Sub Editor Megan Turner +44 (20) 8652 3848 Photographer Mark Wagner +44 (20) 8944 5225 WWW.FLIGHTINTERNATI0NAL.COM Webmaster Sheena Buchanan +44 (20) 8652 4432 SUBSCRIPTIONS +44 (1444) 445454 rbi.subscriptlons@rbi.co.uk THE FLIGHT COLLECTION kim.hearn@rbi.co.uk © and Database Rights 2003 Reed Business Information Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publishers I Air Transport Intelligence (ATI), flight international's sister online service at www.rati.com, contains the full text of Flight , International and Airline Business since 1996. Full text of the magazines can also be found online with Lexis-Nexis, Dialogue, FT Profile, IAC and Reuters. Editor Kieran Daly +44 (20) 8652 3837 Reed Business Information Bulldozed hopes The destruction of a downtown airfield in Chicago illustrates the increasing discrimination against general aviation owners and operators Chicago mayor Richard Daley's clandestine midnight demolition raid on the 55-year-old Meigs Field was nothing short of vandalism by an autocrat determined to shut the popular downtown airport by fair means or foul. This is the final step in a protracted and often bitter battle with Meigs supporters span ning several years. In 1996 Daley did secure the temporary closure of this prime piece of real estate, but reopened it under threat of los ing control of the lakeside airport. Although Meigs Field supporters secured an agreement to keep the airport in operation until at least 2006, legislation was never passed. Legally, Daley could close Meigs and do whatever he wants with the city-owned site, which he plans to turn into a park. But his brazen disregard for the business and general aviation community cannot be condoned. The industry is understandably fearful of how the repercussions of Daley's action will manifest This brazen disregard for the business and GA community cannot be condoned themselves. By justifying his methods as secu rity driven - protecting Chicago from terrorists flying aircraft into the nearby skyscrapers - Daley has cleverly sought to appeal to height ened public sensitivities. There are many GA airports, not only in the USA, that have fallen victim to "nimbyism" (not in my back yard), mainly due to aircraft noise. The public are all too willing to adopt the secu rity argument to rid their communities of this perceived menace and local governments spend a lot of time and money to restrict access to business and general aviation aircraft. The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) trade body, for example, estimates the city of Naples, Florida, spent about $1 million to ban around three Stage 2 aircraft movements a day, while other airports are threatening, illegally, to impose fines on tenants that operate during hours of voluntary curfew. Sadly, the Meigs case will only serve to fan these flames of dissent and could prompt other city councils to consider similar drastic action against unpopular public-use airports. Clearly opponents of these airports do not understand what business aviation is or does. They certainly do not appreciate its contribution to the economy. This ignorance, particularly in the higher echelons of power, has been height ened following 11 September During recent US security crisis simulations, for example, senior officials simply shut down all business and gen eral aviation operations due to a lack of information, rendering the industry impotent. On top of this, the newly formed Transport ation Safety Administration (TSA) is continually impeding business aviation by imposing temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) over major cities, notably Washington DC, often at short notice. These effectively remove the two major benefits of business aircraft- convenience and flexibility. But the industry is fighting back. The NBAA rightly argues that qualified business aviation operators should be granted the same access to airspace as scheduled carriers and have the same immunity from TFRs. This is to be achiev ed through a TSA-provided access certificate. The association wants the access certificate to become a national standard, which will make clear to state and local authorities that airspace and airport security is a national issue and not to be subject to local and unilateral action, as witnessed at Meigs Field last week. The NBAA has a point. After all, business aircraft operators, unlike the airlines, know who their passengers are and, more impor tantly, why they are flying. But alarmingly, airlines are allowed to continue flying and given access to TFRs even as the threat level escalates. The anomaly doesn't end there. While airlines and airports share responsibility for security, business aircraft operators have to go it alone and are required to implement security measures whether the airport is an international gateway or a fenceless airfield. The perceived threat of business aviation should be mitigated by these national security rules. However, with no legal security frame work yet in place for general aviation, the picture is more unclear. Although representa tive trade bodies are urging owner/operators to be responsible it is almost impossible to define whether GA is a realistic security threat or not. A light aircraft cannot do much damage if flown into a building, but two recent high-pro file cases in Florida and Milan, Italy, have done little to dampen these fears. Yet until GA can turn around the perception that it is a security risk, and that task has to be considered monumental in comparison with the one facing business aviation, Richard Daley and others of a similar inclination will get away with bulldozing prime airfields. SEE BUSINESS AVIATION P22 www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 8-14 APR I L 2003 5
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
