The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) hired NEXA Advisors to produce at study titled, “Government Use of Aircraft: A Taxpayer Value Perspective.” Spoiler alert: government personnel, at all levels of government, like using aircraft to do their job and find value in doing so. Imagine that. The quotes in the 24-page study are good reading. They include:
- “Federally-owned aircraft are one of the nation’s most valuable assets,” says an unnamed General Services Administration employee from the 2010 GSA Annual Federal Aircraft Report.
- “A Performance Audit of the state aircraft fleet by the State Auditor of Public Accounts in Kentucky found that the Kentucky state aircraft are an essential tool for many government agencies’ day-to-day business,” noted the Commissioner of Kentucky’s Department of Aviation.
- “In one day I can meet with as many as four airports using the state aircraft. If I went by road or commercial airlines the same number of airport visits would take days,” reported an official from the Maryland Aviation Administration
And my favorite:
- “Staff hour costs are reduced by cutting travel time by 70 percent when using aircraft,” said an airport inspector from a southern state.
Now, if we could get the respondents to the study to tell their fellow bureaucrats how vital aircraft are we might make some headway. Nah, that’s too much to hope for.
Perhaps Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant should have been apprised of this article before selling the State’s Cessna Citation Ultra cutting pilot jobs in State’s Flight Department.