I have many of my researchers who are involved with foreign travel directly
related to their NIH funding (Global Health related).  Because of the Fly
America Act they should be using American carriers (or ones that are code
shared with American carriers).  Apparently, the prices on American carriers
is much more expensive than the prices on foreign airlines.  After asking
several of my PIs if they met the requirements in order to take the foreign
airlines, based on the requirements of being allowed to do so, they said no.

I can't imagine it would be OK, regardless of price, to fly foreign airlines
given the gov'ts current fiscal crisis and the airlines on the verge of
bankruptcy and potentially another taxpayer bailout; so it wouldn't make
sense to divert taxpayer money to foreign carriers.

Does anyone else have this issue?  What are you doing about it?  And,
because of the price of travel has substantially increased, has anyone gone
back to NIH and requested additional funds to cover the costs of flying
American carriers?

Any advice is appreciated -

Jim Machado
Sr Research Administrator

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================