Airlines Use Client Databases For Lobbying Blitz
About a dozen airlines have started using their expansive frequent flier databases for more than special offers on weekend getaways. The companies, including American Airlines, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways, are sending waves of e-mails to customers urging them to press Congress to pass legislation that would limit what they believe is rampant oil speculation.
The airlines are part of a broader business, labor and consumer coalition that launched the Web site StopOilSpeculationNow.com to fight the high cost of fuel. The companies' e-mail campaign launched last week and hundreds of thousands of letters have already been sent by airline customers to Capitol Hill. For past the two weeks, Northwest and Delta employees alone have also sent more than 20,000 messages to congressional leaders.
The e-mail states that crude oil recently hit a high of $146 and the climbing fuel cost is impacting customers, employees and the economy. Two decades ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators and today they purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, the letter states. Over time, regulatory limits have been weakened or removed and "enforcing these limits, along with several other modest measures, will provide more disclosure, transparency and sound market oversight," the e-mail said.
Duke University professor Zephyr Teachout, who received the e-mail, said the campaign raises a number of questions about whether the airlines sharing data backstage and whether they sell the political data they reap. "There's a likely movement here towards collecting political data and fusing it with commercial data, in a few corporate holding sites, that is sort of spooky," she told Tech Daily Dose. Teachout herself is no stranger to Internet activism -- she directed online organizing for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.
The Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller also blogged about the issue calling it "a disturbing trend."
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Update: Air Transport Association of America spokesman David Castelveter said tens of millions of e-mails have gone out to customers since the campaign launched. The notifications to customers and employees are part of routine communications and their response is voluntary, he said, noting that more than a million e-mails have been sent to Capitol Hill from consumers as a result of the initiative. In the past, carriers have asked their employees and customers to reach out members of Congress. Two such instances include new route authorities and the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, he said.
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