The Business Travel Coalition (BTC) urged President Bush to remove the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell and other top FAA officials and charged that failed FAA policies had undermined the economic viability and public confidence in the airline industry.

BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell said the FAA bore responsibility for the “growing commercial air services calamity that is grid-locking the nation and impacting hundreds of thousands of travelers.”

He added that poor policies were driving the U.S. air transportation system “closer to the abyss of financial failure and embarrassing the country on a global scale.”

“Robert Sturgell and his senior leadership have not accepted responsibility for the serious oversight problems that have violated the public trust. Instead, they have endeavored to frame the problem as rogue employees in a failed regional office,” Mitchell said. “Moreover, the reckless audit processes emplaced represent a super-über CYA public relations initiative that by June 30 could embroil the airline industry and the FAA in its own Katrina-like hell. Bad motives beget bad strategy which begets bad results.” Visit www.businesstravelcoalition.com.