The Business Travel Coalition (BTC), as a member of the NY Airline Rulemaking Committee, strongly supported U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters’ announcement regarding measures to increase capacity at New York City airports and for committing to a New York “czar” with authority to cut across government organizations and drive capacity enhancing programs to completion more quickly.

BTC equally strongly opposes the auctioning of slots which will likely create chaos in the management of the airports, drive business airfares up and dampen the interest of airlines that would consider investments at the airports against an uncertainty of adequate slots. The auction process, which would not provide material benefits, should be left for economists interested in game theory at universities, and not for experimentation in the most complicated airline marketplace in the world.