TonyC

I was referring to Tennessee State Senator Mark Norris of Collierville, a Republican who sponsored the bill in the Tennessee Senate, who said the deal is needed to keep FedEx from moving its refueling operations from Memphis to another state. He said, "It's just a fact of jet aircraft. It's just real easy to put down one state short and refuel."

Well, it's not a fact. If it were so easy, we'd be doing it all the time. In fact, let's look at another quote from the second article. Rep. Mark White, R-Memphis, the bill’s House sponsor, told the committee, “FedEx states that it is unsustainable for their company to justify keeping on paying this level of tax when they have capacity at their Indianapolis and Greensboro hubs with little or no aviation fuel tax.”

White also cited state estimates that “losing one third of 36,000 jobs, mainly in West Tennessee, will result in a $1.4 billion loss in direct and indirect revenue and reduced wages and earnings across our state. So my contention is, do we want to look someday at a $1.4 billion loss or put a cap on this?”

Well, if it's unsustainable, pray tell why are we still doing it? If it's cheaper to fly out of Indianapolis or Greensboro, why haven't be been doing it all along? It's not like we don't have a nice big hub in Indy. It's not like we haven't spent a lot of money building a hub in Greensboro. If it's cheaper to fire 12,000 people in Memphis and hire replacements in Indiana and North Carolina, why aren't we doing it already?

It wreaks of the same garbage that was spewed in years past that if the pilots won't behave, Fred will turn this into a trucking company. If it were more profitable to move the freight with trucks, don't you think we'd have been doing it already?


Sure, we'll always tanker cheaper fuel when it makes sense. Sometimes that means bringing tankering cheaper fuel to Memphis, and sometimes that means tankering cheaper fuel FROM Memphis. (I tankered MEM to Toronto a couple of weeks ago.) But this cry that we can no longer pay our taxes in Tennessee is completely disingenuous and embarrassing. It may save FedEx a buck, and we know how bad we're hurting, but it will seriously harm aviation in the Great State of Tennessee. Our legislators should be looking out for the entire state, not just one big company complaining about paying their fair share.






.