Thread: Review: Federal Program Used to Hide Flights from Public

Review: Federal program used to hide flights from public

Updated 18h 37m ago

By Michael Grabell and Sebastian Jones, ProPublica

A federal program designed to protect sensitive business deals and executives' safety is being used by politicians, business executives, university athletic recruiters and others to avoid publicity by hiding their flights on private aircraft from the public, a ProPublica review has found.
The aircraft owners don't have to demonstrate any need need to keep flights secret. They simply request secrecy from the National Business Aviation Association, which lobbied for the program and runs it for the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA removes flights from its database before giving the information to flight-tracking websites.

This week, after a 15-month effort, ProPublica obtained the current list of 1,100 aircraft whose flights had been removed from the database. The FAA released the list after a federal judge rejected the NBAA's argument that it should remain confidential for security and competitive reasons.


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Planes on the list range from those owned by Fortune 500 companies such as bailout recipient American International Group, to college athletic programs, such as the University of Alabama, which say they request flight privacy to hide coach searches and recruiting trips. Also granted secrecy were planes registered to federal agencies, churches and newspaper owners.

In 2008, after the Big Three auto executives found themselves in the spotlight for flying corporate jets to Washington to plead for aid from Congress, General Motors used the system to block its flights from the public. It declined to say why.

Use of the airspace is considered public information because taxpayers fund air-traffic controllers, radars and runways. "It belongs to all of us," said Chuck Collins, who has studied private jet travel at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank. "It's not a private preserve."

NBAA spokesman Dan Hubbard said privacy is important to business fliers because competitors can learn of potential deals by tracking planes, and that could affect stock prices. "There are certain circumstances where there is a security concern," he said.

In 2000, Congress required websites to stop posting flights of certain planes at the FAA's request. The FAA later agreed to let the aviation group be the clearinghouse. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency lacks resources to evaluate whether requests to keep flights secret are justified, so the agency lets the NBAA decide each month the flights kept from public view.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... ghts_N.htm

Grabell and Jones report for ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom based in New York. USA TODAY editors helped prepare this story.

Has no one heard of teleconferencing and overnight delivery? Then there is always taking a car or walking.

Well....they could teleconference but how would they improve their golf games or get a suntan?