National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) President Ed Bolen and National Air Transportation Association (NATA) President Jim Coyne last week expressed opposition to wording in a bill to provide troubled U.S. automobile makers with federal bailout funding. Noting that provisions in the bill involving business aviation could have “unintended consequences,” Bolen wrote to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that those sections “appear to prohibit the use of business aviation in all situations, including when it is the sole mode of transportation available to a business, or it is the most prudent and cost-effective solution to a given transportation challenge.” Bolen continued that NBAA “believes that the broad wording of the provision could be misinterpreted as suggesting that Congress does not recognize the critical importance of this mode of transportation to the success of U.S. businesses facing unprecedented international competition, the economic development of small towns and rural communities, and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers,” Bolen continued. “Expressly prohibiting all air travel that is not on a scheduled commercial airline is an unreasonable restriction on the auto industry and any other industry with a diverse rural manufacturing and supplier network,” noted Coyne in a letter to Congress. “Using legislation intended to save jobs in one sector of the economy to impact jobs negatively in another, equally important segment, is unconscionable,” he continued.
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