Originally Posted by
rwanttaja
Don't forget the wording of EAA's announcement: "EAA today finalized a one-time agreement..."
As Dick's posting said a few pages back, the FAA didn't give EAA a definitive answer on whether they were going to get charged until barely three months before the show. Not really enough time to do anything drastic. Now, this gives them the opportunity to fight hard for 2014, and come up with some alternatives if the FAA stays firm.
With the time they had, the only real alternative would have been to cancel the show. I don't think that would have been in the best interests of EAA, for the hundreds of vendors who count on making serious sales contacts during the show, or for the hundreds of thousands of people for whom this is the high point of their aviation year.
EAA really made the only choice that was possible...but as the news release says, the agreement is ONE TIME. Sure, it sets a precedent, which won't help, but EAA will now have a year to come up with alternate arrangements.
Ron Wanttaja