ALLIANCE ANSWERS ATA'S DECEPTIVE CARTOON COMMERCIAL (airline ad lies)

AOPA ^ | 6/1/07

[pabianice]

May 31, 2007 - The Alliance for Aviation Across America (AAAA), of which EAA is a member, has effectively rebutted an extremely misleading pro-user fee commercial produced by the Air Transport Association (ATA) that began running in airports around the country, including on the CNN Airport Network. ATA’s commercial, which features cartoon airplanes awaiting takeoff on a runway, falsely claims that airport congestion is caused by small aircraft, that small aircraft get preferential treatment at airports, and that they don’t pay for costs imposed on the system.

AAAA countered by simply stating the facts, including that small aircraft make up less than 4 percent of all aircraft operations at the top 10 busiest U.S. airports, and that almost all non-weather related flight delays are directly attributable to commercial airline business practices such as over-scheduling. AAAA created its own commercial that can be seen here, and also provides a point-by-point rebuttal to the outright false claims in the ATA commercial.

In one ridiculous example, the ATA commercial attempts to paint GA as rich fat-cats by showing a pompous private jet cutting in front of the airliners so its passengers can “make an early tee time.” Of course, no aircraft can ever butt in and “cut off” other aircraft such as depicted.

“The ATA ad confirms the airlines’ resolve in attempting to gain more control of our nation’s air space, to push a disproportionate share of the costs of managing that airspace onto general aviation, and to mislead the traveling public into believing that the delays and poor service they experience are anything but the result of the airlines’ own shortcomings,” said EAA president Tom Poberezny. “The GA community must continue to rebut this misinformation and resist any proposal to institute user fees.”