By Judith Curtis
Associate Editor
TxDOT Public Information Office
Welcome Aboard, Flight Services.
TxDOT has taken under its wing, so to speak, the state agency that flies state workers and officials to work-related meetings in the state and sometimes beyond its borders.
The former Aircraft Pooling Board, along with 22 employees and seven airplanes of various sizes, now resides within TxDOT’s Aviation Division and has been renamed Flight Services.
Texas, with its 254 counties spread over more than 268,000-square miles, takes up about seven percent of the total water and land area of the United States. And, according to the 2006 – 2007 Texas Almanac, the longest north-south distance is 801 miles long – from the northwest corner of the Panhandle to the extreme southern tip below Brownsville. Going east-west, Texas spreads out 773 miles at its widest – from the extreme eastward bend in the Sabine River to the extreme western bulge of the Rio Grande above El Paso. (Just for comparison: California is 770 miles long and 250 miles wide at its most distant points, Florida is 500 miles in length and 160 miles at its widest, and Alaska is 1,480 miles by 810 miles.)
In a place like Texas, that makes air travel more a necessity than a creature comfort.
“One of the biggest misconceptions (about a state airplane fleet) is that they see the aircraft as a luxury,” says Don Ramsey, aircraft operations director. “But in fact, it’s a tool to help Texas state employees efficiently do their job.”
Ramsey says that many people erroneously believe that “all we carry is the governor and other high-ranking officials.” Indeed, he says, “Our aircraft recently allowed employees to go to Del Rio, Ozona and San Angelo in one day conducting state business at each stop.”
On that particular trip, workers from the Texas Workforce Commission gave seminars to employers on such topics as wage and hour laws, unemployment insurance and employment issues. Says Renee Miller, legal counsel to TWC member Ron Lehman, “Getting to Alpine is almost impossible,” without the state plane. Using Flight Services, she says, TWC staff reaches more employers, helping more Texans. And, she says, “It’s always service with a smile.”
John Gillen, program specialist with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, says that use of state planes saves precious worker time.
“It lets us, along with our staff, come to work in the morning, stay till 2 or 3 in the afternoon, then go to the airport and fly into our meeting and get home the same night.”
Because Gillen’s meetings are all held at night, using the state plane eliminates the cost of motels and some meals. What’s more, Gillen and his TCEQ colleagues are back in the office by 9 most mornings following a trip out of town.
“It’s a real time saver for the state,” he says.
Ramsey notes, for example, that traveling by commercial airline from Austin to Laredo, takes at least nine hours, including early airport arrival and delays.
“In our aircraft you spend a total of two hours traveling,” he says.
“Indeed,” says Ramsey, “that aircraft is a tool, like everything else. State cars, computers, they’re simply tools. And with these aircraft we can get the people of Texas the representation and attention they deserve from their state government.”
