Industry Should Support Latest Fed. Efforts, And More

<B>Industry Should Support Latest Fed. Efforts, And More</B>

After a long drum roll, Congress finally has reported out a bill to address some of the dire needs of the travel industry, and the Administration has launched an initiative to address air traffic delays. Travel buyers and suppliers should support these efforts and lead the way to make further improvements, even though they will have to pay some of the costs.

To move our industry closer to where it ought to be will require even more of an investment from the industry and the federal government.

Congressional action approving $40 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration, including airport capacity and safety improvements, for the next three years certainly is a step in the right direction, even if it doesn't solve all of the problems plaguing our nation's aviation infrastructure.

The House of Representatives last week approved the conference bill, approved by the Senate a week earlier, that reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration. President Clinton's signature is expected.

The catch-all legislation makes several needed changes and hikes the passenger facilities tax from $1.50 to $4.50 per segment. That increase should raise an additional $700 million to fund the development of terminals and security devices. Until now, money that has been put into the Aviation Trust Fund, ostensibly to pay for much-needed improvements, has been locked in to the federal budget process. The bill will provide for the spending of annual trust fund receipts and interest. The legislation also lifts slot restrictions at Chicago O'Hare by 2002 and at New York La Guardia and JFK by 2007. Despite Sen. John McCain's arm-twisting attempts to get more than 40 new slots at Washington Reagan National, the bill will add only 24 more.

The bill also establishes a private, non-profit corporation, the Air Traffic Modernization Association, overseen by a board of FAA, airline and airport representatives, to conduct a pilot program to arrange lease and debt financing for certain ATC projects and funds studies of service to smaller communities.

The bill ends the short-term reauthorization cycle that was hamstringing FAA, but it still doesn't establish a permanent funding program to keep the air traffic control system in good repair.

Meanwhile, under President Clinton's recently announced initiative, federal resources by April 1 will provide information to airlines that can reduce delays from weather conditions and can better inform passengers about those delays that cannot be avoided. Further, the President has asked FAA to draft a plan in 45 days for future reform of the air traffic control system.

Corporate travel buyers and their suppliers are averse to increasing their costs, but improved air traffic control and airport capacity and security are critical. That's why it is so important for all participants in the industry to be vocal at this moment when real steps forward can be taken. And there is more still to be done in those areas, as well as in creating a long-term mechanism to sustain those efforts.

Travel industry participants should also be looking to push for other legislative priorities that the bill and the executive action do not address, including the promotion of the United States as a destination.

House minority leader Tom Daschle, (D-S.D.), speaking at the Travel Industry Association's annual Unity Dinner in Washington earlier this month, voiced his commitment to the travel industry's legislative priorities. Daschle underscored the importance of the passage of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization. According to insiders, presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.) shut down the FAA reauthorization process to focus on delivering a pork barrel deal for slots for America West at Reagan National, even though a deal had been struck by the industry and legislators and Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) was ready to move.

Daschle also called for the creation of a new entity to take up where the former U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration left off and supported TIA's call to take the pilot out of the visa waiver pilot progam, which expires April 30. TIA expects bills to be drafted soon in both the Senate and the House.

Also on Daschle's and the industry's list of priorities is the need to fund a satellite account to track travel as an industry segment.

According to Rush Marburg, new executive director of the Travel Business Roundtable, $4.5 million in President Clinton's budget would fund 10 historic cultural sites and $400,000 of that funding would go toward establishing a satellite account for the travel industry.

Meanwhile, the American Society of Association Executives research foundation this month honored the remarkable and continued industry leadership of TBR chairman Jonathan Tisch. He has helped build House and Senate travel caucuses and get the Administration to name a travel point person.

Tisch and the TBR have helped our industry to make headway on Capitol Hill and in the White House by helping to orchestrate an increasingly unified chorus of voices from key supplier CEOs, but more participation by supplier executives and corporate travel buyers could produce even greater results now, despite the added legislative hurdles presented by an election year.

What is required is real "put your money where your mouth is" leadership. Since the industry will benefit from improving the infrastructure and promoting its use, the industry should be prepared to help pay the cost.