As promised, the Allegheny County Airport Authority is appealing a Superior Court ruling that found it acted arbitrarily, capriciously and outside the law when it booted Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) “airmall” operator Fraport nearly a year ago.
But there’s a chilling passage in the authority’s request for a reconsideration from a three-judge panel of the court or a rehearing before the full court.
But first, the brief background:
The authority, mainly citing security concerns, abrogated its lease with Fraport after a three-decade relationship. It used Allegheny County Police to physically evict Fraport employees. The authority has overseen the mall’s operations since.
Fraport took the Airport Authority to court, claiming legal injury via trumped-up security concerns and other matters. But an Allegheny County judge sided with the authority and, among other things, found the lease to be a “service contract.”
Fraport appealed to Superior Court, which, in a scathing retort, found all manner of legal error in the lower court ruling – to wit, a lease really is a lease – and remanded the matter back to the lower court to rule, properly, in favor of Fraport.
Neither was the authority’s questionable behavior spared the appellate court’s wrath.
Back to the Airport Authority’s response, as the Post-Gazette reports it:
“In an 18-page appeal filed [May 23], the authority, which operates the Findlay airport, maintained the panel overstepped its bounds in ordering Fraport Pittsburgh back to work.
“It also chided the [Superior Court] trio for failing to take into account security issues that it claims were among the reasons for the eviction, charging that it was ‘flat-out dangerous’ to second-guess that authority and a lower court on such matters.”
Allow us to translate:
The Allegheny County Airport Authority believes it can do what it wants, and when it wants, with impunity and with no legal oversight.
It’s the kind of behavior we’ve come to expect from an authority that has operated questionably for years.
Think of how the authority, pretty much out of wild blue yonder, announced its now-under-construction, $1.4 billion terminal modernization project. The public had no clue until the plans were set.
Think of the authority’s continuing public subsidies to airlines and past subsidies to cargo carriers, hoping – and too often failing – to create demand for flights instead of allowing real demand to warrant 100 percent private investment in pursuit of profits.
Think, too, of Airport Authority board members, investing in at least one of the subsidized airlines.
And the arrogance of the authority – a public authority, mind you – and, according to the Superior Court tribunal, is on display yet again in the Fraport legal case.
Enough is enough. It’s past time for the Allegheny County Airport Authority, as a matter of sound public policy, to be held accountable in all facets of its operations.
It has run amok for far too long.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
