Senate slips special air travel perk into Defense spending bill

If members of Congress don’t seem to have a lot of sympathy for the plight of everyday airline passengers, it could be due to the special treatment they get from airlines. As an example, the Washington Post reported last week that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) quietly agreed to slip a special provision into a Defense spending bill – one quite unrelated to defense. The provision would legally guarantee a special perk for members of the U.S. Senate: the right to make multiple bookings for flights on commercial airlines, then choose the one that best suits their schedules. The provision was deemed necessary because airlines had been concerned about new ethics and lobbying regulations that bar gifts to legislators; a few major carriers thought the multiple-booking privilege might have been considered a gift, so they stopped permitting it. Senate aides told the newspaper that Senators need that flexibility because they are never sure what their schedules are going to look like from one day to the next.