Control Tower Furloughs Delay Major U.S. Airports

Mike Boyd, Chairman of Boyd Group International, the aviation consulting, research and forecasting firm, appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box Monday morning hot with conspiracy theories, touching upon sequestration's effect on airlines across the country and his belief that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is to blame. "This whole cutback thing is bogus. After sequestration the FAA will have 5% more money than they did five years ago and will handle about 8% fewer flights. So these cutbacks, it's political, it's not functional," said Boyd. With budget cuts taking effect in the form of control tower furloughs, and heightened security in airports after last week's terror-spree in Boston, many airlines are slowing down, but Boyd thinks there's more to it. He is confident that flying is being made to be more miserable as a strategic attack on transportation by the government to gain public sympathy and support for higher taxes. "What we're going to go through in the next few days is orchestrated by this administration to impose hurt on the American public to get them on their side," said Boyd. Boyd called out Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood during the interview, holding him directly responsible for "gumming" up the system, saying that the slowdown of the nation's airlines is a government shutdown done by professionals. "It's not just sequestration, it's what the secretary of transportation is doing to make sure that sequestration hits the right nerves rather than protects the people," Boyd said. Boyd claimed that it doesn't matter what airline you take or what airport you go to, the whole system is going to by jammed up by design to be ineffective and hard to bare.