Drudge: A Duel in the Sky

Found on today's Drudge Report
NEW YORK: The summer travel season is building toward its Labor Day peak in
the United States, and fliers are growing ever angrier about delays. Now,
the beleaguered airline industry is trying to shift the blame onto an
unlikely villain: corporate jets, which the airlines claim are literally
crowding passenger planes out of the sky.

In what is shaping up as a smackdown between two of the least popular
constituencies out there - airlines and corporate chieftains - the argument
over the delays plaguing airports across America this summer is quickly
taking a populist turn.

It is a delicious twist. After all, the airlines themselves have been on the
receiving end of populist outrage, especially after delays that stranded
passengers for hours in overcrowded airliners. But now the industry's
lobbying group in Washington, the Air Transport Association, has charged
that the explosive growth of corporate jets is the real culprit.

The reality is that the root causes of the delays are manifold - airports
with little or no spare capacity, a 1950s air traffic control system, and
burgeoning demand for direct flights to smaller cities.

And the people who own and use private jets are quick to say that airlines
are offering them up as scapegoats...

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7257326