Obama has nominated Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx to be the new Secretary of Transportation, but the Wall Street Journal’s editorial today questions whether he’s a good choice:
After holding the door open for airline delays on behalf of his sequester politics, President Obama doesn’t seem worried about reassuring angry passengers. In nominating Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx on Monday to serve as Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Obama has chosen a politician embroiled in a growing controversy over airports and air travel.
Expect Team Obama to associate Mayor Foxx with North Carolina’s wildly successful Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), which has thrived for decades by offering dependable service at rock-bottom prices. But lately Mayor Foxx (elected in 2009) and his allies on the Charlotte City Council have become a threat to those low prices.
The Charlotte airport charges an average of just 96 cents per enplaned passenger. Other hubs typically tax at rates 10 times that, or roughly $10 per enplaned passenger. At New York airports, the cost can soar above $45.
The Charlotte bargain has made the airport so appealing as a hub that it’s now the sixth largest in the country measured in take-offs and landings—remarkable given that Charlotte is the country’s 23rd largest metro area.
But the mayor doesn’t seem to understand that this transportation goose can lay its golden eggs only if it offers low prices. Last year, over the objections of airport administrators, Mr. Foxx insisted on replacing airport police with higher-paid city cops. In one year, police costs at the airport more than doubled. We’re told that after CLT added a new runway in 2010, Mr. Foxx’s government also required hiring more firefighters than the airport’s managers wanted.
The Charlotte Observer recently reported on a city plan last fall to raise $3.9 million via a tax on airport parking spaces. The Foxx administration abandoned the plan amid concerns it would violate a federal law that prohibits using airport revenues on other programs.
Last month the North Carolina State Senate voted to take control of the airport away from Mr. Foxx and the Charlotte pols and place it in the hands of a regional authority. An authority called the U.S. Senate must now decide whether passengers deserve a transportation chief who seems dedicated to raising their ticket prices.