Fly America
Greetings from the Holiday Inn Express at the Brussels Airport.
I arrived here this morning after an overnight flight from JFK (NYC), and depart tomorrow morning for Kinshasa. I will arrive, after a brief stop in Cameroon, around 7pm, Monday. Columbus Day, actually.
I am in the middle of this 25-hour layover thanks to a US government policy based on Congressional legislation known as the “Fly America Act.” Basically a subsidy for the airline industry, it requires anyone whose travel is being paid for by the government (as is the case with Fulbrights) to fly a US carrier to their destination. This policy gets a bit tricky when no US carrier services your country of destination, as is the case with me. In such cases, you must take a US carrier as far as possible, which for me means flying Delta to Europe. Then from Europe, I can travel on SN Brussels the rest of the way. (SN, formerly Sabena, and Air France are the two European carriers that service Kinshasa.) This can be very costly (although in fairness they give you enough to cover it) and in my case quite inconvenient because of baggage. I am traveling with two 65-lb suitcases, and a small roller suitcase and laptop briefcase as carry-ons. I had to pick my bags up at customs in Brussels and haul them to the Holiday Inn Express. Tomorrow, I need to carry them back to the airport in the morning, and will need to pay my second excess baggage charge, which I anticipate will be a great deal more than the $50 it cost me to get them to Brussels. SN Brussels flights to Africa have a ridiculously low baggage maximum (I think 30kg total). If I was able to fly on a through-ticket, I could have checked the bags once, paid once, and picked them up at the airport in Kinshasa.
I am wondering about the benefits of the Fly America Act. Certainly it is not helping me out. How much money does the government direct toward the airline industry in this way? And how much does it cost them to do so? Is it a significant amount of money or more of a symbolic gesture? Also, I am trying to think about similar programs, maybe they can devise one to help out farmers that requires the purchase of local produce for those airline meals…
My Fly America Day in Belgium, on this Columbus Day eve, has been spent quite happily in the hotel room, relaxing and working. After a few hectic weeks, I don’t mind the time alone. On my way up to the room, I noticed a brochure in the lobby advertising the “Colonial Memory” exhibit at the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren which I saw in April (and subsequently described in an email that you may have received). I looked at the flier, surprised that the exhibit was still running. Actually today was its final day.
Tomorrow, Kinshasa.
I arrived here this morning after an overnight flight from JFK (NYC), and depart tomorrow morning for Kinshasa. I will arrive, after a brief stop in Cameroon, around 7pm, Monday. Columbus Day, actually.
I am in the middle of this 25-hour layover thanks to a US government policy based on Congressional legislation known as the “Fly America Act.” Basically a subsidy for the airline industry, it requires anyone whose travel is being paid for by the government (as is the case with Fulbrights) to fly a US carrier to their destination. This policy gets a bit tricky when no US carrier services your country of destination, as is the case with me. In such cases, you must take a US carrier as far as possible, which for me means flying Delta to Europe. Then from Europe, I can travel on SN Brussels the rest of the way. (SN, formerly Sabena, and Air France are the two European carriers that service Kinshasa.) This can be very costly (although in fairness they give you enough to cover it) and in my case quite inconvenient because of baggage. I am traveling with two 65-lb suitcases, and a small roller suitcase and laptop briefcase as carry-ons. I had to pick my bags up at customs in Brussels and haul them to the Holiday Inn Express. Tomorrow, I need to carry them back to the airport in the morning, and will need to pay my second excess baggage charge, which I anticipate will be a great deal more than the $50 it cost me to get them to Brussels. SN Brussels flights to Africa have a ridiculously low baggage maximum (I think 30kg total). If I was able to fly on a through-ticket, I could have checked the bags once, paid once, and picked them up at the airport in Kinshasa.
I am wondering about the benefits of the Fly America Act. Certainly it is not helping me out. How much money does the government direct toward the airline industry in this way? And how much does it cost them to do so? Is it a significant amount of money or more of a symbolic gesture? Also, I am trying to think about similar programs, maybe they can devise one to help out farmers that requires the purchase of local produce for those airline meals…
My Fly America Day in Belgium, on this Columbus Day eve, has been spent quite happily in the hotel room, relaxing and working. After a few hectic weeks, I don’t mind the time alone. On my way up to the room, I noticed a brochure in the lobby advertising the “Colonial Memory” exhibit at the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren which I saw in April (and subsequently described in an email that you may have received). I looked at the flier, surprised that the exhibit was still running. Actually today was its final day.
Tomorrow, Kinshasa.
posted by irad at 11:17 PM
1 Comments:
Safe travels, Ira. It's interesting to realize how much legislative behavior I'm unaware of. I'd never heard of the Fly America thing, and most people probably don't unless they find themselves in a situation like yours. It's funny to think of the possible extensions. While on a government grant, you could only research foreign authors if Americans haven't written on the subject; you could only speak foreign languages if there isn't an equivalent word in English; you can only have foreign friends if Americans are unavailable... Actually my father met my mother while he was on a Fullbright, so I suppose I should be glad that he too decided to fly American.
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