GBTA Calls for “Top-to-Bottom Review” of Weekend’s Air Travel Disruption

Alexandria, VA – August 8, 2015 – Global Business Travel Association Executive Director and COO, Michael McCormick, today called for a top-to-bottom review of the air travel disruption that caused cancellations and delays of flights across the nation. His statement follows:

“Over the weekend, an air traffic disruption caused by a ‘technical glitch’ resulted in more than 3,400 delays and 640 cancellations of flights across the nation. This is an unacceptable outcome, which caused considerable hardship to tens of thousands of travelers across the nation.

In the wake of this disruption, there should be a top-to-bottom review of how technical upgrades are implemented, including a close examination of the long-term planning process. A situation like this should never happen again.

Just as important, this outage should serve as a wakeup call to Congress on Reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which expires on September 30th.

The traveling public needs a reliable air travel system. We cannot afford to go through a repeat of the last reauthorization process, which took over 20 short-term extensions and four years.

When it comes to air travel, long term planning is dependent on long term funding. This is something desperately missing and is hindering the upgrade of the nation’s air traffic control.”

CONTACT: Colleen Gallagher, +1 703-236-1133, cgallagher@gbta.org

About the Global Business Travel Association
The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) is the world’s premier business travel and meetings trade organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with operations on six continents. GBTA’s 9,000-plus members manage more than $345 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually. GBTA and the GBTA Foundation deliver world-class education, events, research, advocacy and media to a growing global network of more than 28,000 travel professionals and 125,000 active contacts. To learn how business travel drives lasting business growth, gbta.org