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Leading Business Travel Association Responds to Obama’s State of the Union

U.S. Government Receives C+ for 2009 Performance on Corporate Travel Issues

NBTA Government Scorecard Slams Lack of Action on FAA NextGen, Hails International Passenger Facilitation

Alexandria, VA (January 29, 2010) – The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) welcomes the President Barack Obama's emphasis on creating jobs that will kick start the U.S. economy, as laid out in the State of the Union address. The association also praised this week's announcement that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is awarding $8 billion to states for high-speed rail development, a priority on NBTA’s 2010 government relations agenda. NBTA is pleased the business travel industry is already a key component of the agenda in Washington for 2010. Unfortunately, this wasn’t always the case in 2009.

NBTA today issued the United States government an overall grade of C+ in its 2009 Government Relations Scorecard. Released a year after President Obama was sworn into office, the NBTA scorecard analyses Congressional and federal agency activity on the most important government issues affecting corporate travel.

NBTA graded the progress made in 2009 on 12 issues grouped into 3 categories: Domestic Travel (C), International Travel (B+), and Taxes and Regulation (D-).

Michael W. McCormick, NBTA Executive Director and COO, said, “2009 was one of the toughest years America has faced in decades. And while much work was done by Congress and the Obama Administration to help our ailing economy, efforts to further the corporate travel industry earned the government an average rating. There is clearly more work to be done, and NBTA stands ready to support the government in its efforts to ensure the quality and safe facilitation of global business travel.”

NBTA graded actions taken on the following issues:

The government’s work on transportation infrastructure and international registered traveler programs each earned an A from NBTA. The association lauded the allocation of $8 billion for expansion of high-speed rail across the United States and was pleased to learn this week that the funds will be awarded this early in 2010. NBTA also noted that the Department of Homeland Security expanded its Global Entry program to 13 additional U.S. airports in 2009 and launched the first bilateral agreement with a foreign government to allow expedited entry into participating nations.

McCormick added, “These two travel issues were by far the most successful of the year. Investments in transportation infrastructure and improved international passenger facilitation are vital undertakings that will benefit travelers, companies and economies around the world for decades to come.”

Funding for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received the lowest grade – an F. NBTA says enactment of FAA reauthorization would help speed deployment of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), which would help to reduce delays caused by the current antiquated system. Despite efforts to pass the FAA Reauthorization bill, another short-term extension was enacted in December. Congress and the Administration also did not include funding for NextGen in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, known as the economic stimulus package, nor did the House include NextGen funding in its “Jobs” bill passed last month.

“The refusal of our government to prioritize the modernization of our aviation system is a significant failure,” said McCormick. “Our economy relies heavily on the efficiency of air travel. In fact, business travel alone contributes $260 billion to the U.S. economy, and we’ve found that investment in business travel could lead to the creation of more than 5 million new jobs.”

NBTA also issued its 2010 Government Relations Agenda today. The association will focus on educating Congress and the Administration about the value of business travel, a healthy travel infrastructure, passenger efficiency and safety, and fair taxation and fees.

The NBTA 2009 Government Relations Scorecard and 2010 Government Relations Agenda can be found at www.nbta.org or by contacting NBTA at .

The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) is the world’s premier business travel and corporate meetings organization. NBTA and its regional affiliates – NBTA Asia Pacific, the Brazilian Business Travel Association (ABGEV), NBTA Canada, NBTA Europe, NBTA Mexico, and NBTA USA – serve a network of more than 17,000 business travel professionals around the globe with industry-leading events, networking, education & professional development, research, news & information, and advocacy. NBTA members, numbering more than 5,000 in 30 nations, are corporate and government travel and meetings managers, as well as travel service providers. They collectively manage and direct more than US$340 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually on behalf of more than 13 million business travelers within their organizations. For more information, visit http://www.nbta.org.

Secretary LaHood, The Ьber Passenger Advocate!

BTC Applauds New 3-Hour Extended Tarmac Delay Rule

Congestion and delays to be substantially mitigated

Radnor, PA, December 21, 2009--Business Travel Coalition (BTC) today applauded Secretary Ray LaHood and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for its rulemaking process that led to landmark passenger protections including requiring airlines to deplane passengers after 3 hours of an extended tarmac delay if it is safe and operationally feasible to do so. Passenger protections concerning tarmac delays have been debated for some 10 years. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) deserve significant credit for drawing official Washington attention to this serious problem in recent years.

Perhaps the most profound and positive implication of this 3-hour rule is that it simply will not work at the 3 New York City-area airports, and other over-scheduled major hubs, unless incumbent airlines rationalize and de-peak their schedules and operations. Each airline will have to look at their entire system and restructure, or they will violate the new rule virtually every day. U.S. global carriers will have to consider changes to their domestic and international schedules and operations. The problem of congestion and delays could be substantially alleviated with this 3-hour rule.

BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell stated, “Passengers will likely experience problems during the period when airlines are reengineering their businesses as 120 days is not sufficient time for airlines to prepare for this kind of fundamental and complex change-management process. Over the longer term, however, passengers will move throughout the aviation system much more efficiently and business travelers in particular will recapture productivity lost sitting on delayed aircraft.” “All passengers will benefit from the requirement that airlines must provide food, water, operable lavatories and medical attention as needed. Importantly, passengers will finally have hope and realistic expectations that there is an exit strategy should a flight be destined to remain excessively delayed,” added Mitchell.

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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

12:00 pm ET | Online

The Next Big Thing in Travel: 2010 and Beyond

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

2:00 pm ET | Online | Free

Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 (St. Louis) –The Coalition Against Discriminatory Car Rental Excise Taxes today announced its opposition to a proposed doubling of car rental excise taxes in Florida. The Florida Legislature, which enacted the current $2 daily rate in 1989, is now considering raising car rental excise taxes to $4 per day – a 100 percent increase – to help fund TriRail and SunRail.

For example, in 2006 the Sun-Sentinel published an article about another possible car rental excise tax increase, quoting a Florida state representative as follows: "It has the obvious attraction, in that it essentially attacks those people out of state."

With similar concerns, public finance economist Kim Rueben wrote the following last year to the Philadelphia Daily News: "…Philadelphia’s so-called ‘tourist tax’ has been paid largely by local consumers and businesses. But there’s a larger issue here: Regardless of who pays them, such excise taxes represent a discriminatory, arbitrary and inequitable policy, whether the car rental is for an hour, a day or a week….Like other excise taxes, they also fall disproportionately on those who can least afford to pay them – including local residents who rent cars on weekends at discounted rates because they simply cannot afford to own a car. In short, all car rental taxes unfairly burden one group of consumers, often to pay for projects and programs that have no direct connection to renting a car."

The Coalition has repeatedly and publicly acknowledged that local government authority not only is the cornerstone of U.S. democracy, but that local leaders clearly are struggling to fund many worthwhile programs, including the SunRail and TriRail mass transit construction project. This political reality was reiterated by a National Conference of State Legislatures spokesman in the recent USA Today article: "Rental Car Taxes Are Getting Jacked Up – States Sell Them as Out-of-Towner Taxes."