Business Goes On As Usual

This past summer, the City Of New Haven instituted a policy forbidding public funds to be used for travel on Avelo Airlines by any city employee, grantee or contractor. This came in response to the airline contracting with the Federal government to carry undocumented immigrants out of the country on their aircraft.

So what? So what?

Even New Haven mayor Justin Elicker admitted that the action is largely symbolic. "We don't do a lot of air travel, period. So as far as the financial impact to Avelo, I would say this is minimal." And, as we haven't seen any stories reporting a drop in Avelo's boardings out of New Haven, it would appear the mayor is right. Avelo estimates it will board 700,000 passengers out of Tweed this year. And Tweed just recorded its four-millionth passenger boarding in the past five years. Besides, there's still the option of flying Breeze Airways. Moreover, the seats available by those boycotting Avelo are probably being snapped up by those flying the airline because it's flying illegals out of the country.

Here's my question: Has any city employee traveled out of Tweed on business? I sure don't know of any. Case in point: In 2004, then-mayor John DeStefano traveled to the Democrat National Convention in Denver, filing regular dispatches to the New Haven Register. His first column divulged that he had flown there from New York's LaGuardia Airport. This from a man who went on record as promoting Tweed as "convenient" to use. I guess he didn't mind "inconveniencing" himself this time.

The only New Haven mayor I can say for sure traveled out of Tweed was John Daniels, and that because he was on United Air Lines' inaugural flight from New Haven to Chicago/O'Hare. (As Mr. Daniels entered the O'Hare terminal, he was heard to exclaim, "Now this is an airport!" Enough to inspire you to improve your city's airport, Mayor Daniels? Apparently not.)

I can't recall the last time I saw a picture of a New Haven mayor welcoming anyone of note at Tweed.

While the city budgets monies for travel, I suspect city employees have historically shunned travel out of Tweed for the same reason a lot of folks did. For starters, the planes were rather small, ranging in size from 19 to 37 seats. They were jet-prop-driven, somewhat noisy and had a tendency to vibrate. Furthermore, the airlines were "commuters," meaning that you flew from Tweed to a larger city's hub airport and changed to jet aircraft there. This usually involved a layover of at least an hour. And the fares tended to be higher than those offered by the airlines serving Bradley or the two Queens, N. Y., airports.

So where did the city's travel budget go? My guess is to Metro-North or Amtrak (on the Acela, of course, because after all, it's not like it's their money), Connecticut Limo (to JFK or LaGuardia), or up to Bradley.

The irony here is that Avelo singlehandedly opened up New Haven and Southern Connecticut to at least half of America, with direct flights to places as far away as Houston, St. Louis and Chicago, in addition to those Florida locales to which Connecticutters love to flock, and Puerto Rico.

The self-described "world class city" no longer had a Third World airport.

Yes, it's regrettable that Avelo made this "deal with the devil" to fly the undocumented out of the country. But history shows us that sometimes you're made an offer you can't refuse. Ferdinand Porsche realized that when Adolf Hitler assigned him the task of building a "peoples' car," and thus, the Volkswagen was born. Mr. Porsche was in a rather unenviable situation: comply with Der Fuhrer or face the consequences. Now here's the punchline: The VW became quite popular in postwar America, particularly with those who were on a budget in buying a car, with no one giving a thought about Kristallnacht or the Final Solution when they bought their first Beetle. I imagine there are still some folks who won't drive any German-made car because of Hitler. But the bottom line is that 90 years later, the Volkswagen is alive and well.

Another individual who more readily collaborated with the Nazis was fashion star Coco Chanel, who made no secret of her loathing the Jews. When the Nazis occupied Paris and seized all property owned by the Jews, Coco took advantage of this to take control of her perfume which was managed by the Wertheimers. She stayed at the Ritz Hotel, which was the residence for a number of high-echelon Nazi military officers. And she was identified by British Intelligence as an agent for the Nazis, number F 7124. She kept a low profile for several years after the war, and in 1954 released her "comeback" line, which was reported in the British and American press as a "breakthrough." Coco Chanel was back. Not bad for a woman who threw her lot in with "Herr Wolf." And to this day, Coco Chanel is a major player in the world of couture and fashion.

The lesson here is that in most cases, the passage of time will erase the transgressions of a person (or, in this case, a company).

Avelo, like fellow Tweed occupant Breeze, is a rather young startup company competing against not only established "legacy" carriers like American, Delta and United, but against other established low-cost carriers such as Frontier, JetBlue and Southwest. The Federal government threw them a lifeline, probably speculating that their financial situation borders on fragile. I wonder if Spirit Airlines wishes they had that ICE contract.

Would you take needed money from someone to do something which could be viewed as unpopular? Tough call, I know. Some of us pro-Tweed folk have pondered this about East Haven mayor Joe Carfora. In his first campaign for mayor, it was reported he owed back property taxes to the towns of North Haven and East Haven. After he was elected mayor there was never any mention of the issue again. Oh, and Mr. Carfora changed his stance about Tweed, pivoting from his pledge that the terminal would "be built by East Haven business and East Haven labor" to actually coming out against it. Coincidence?

In the meantime, we have city employees who never use Avelo being told by the administration that they can't use Avelo.

Hmmm.