On Feb. 10, Nick Calio, head of the nation’s top airline trade group, Airlines for America, testified before Rep. Bill Shuster’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The topic was a top priority for both men: A bill to overhaul the Federal Aviation Administration, most controversially by putting air traffic control in the hands of an entity favorable to the airlines.

Two days later, Shuster’s committee approved the measure. And the week after that, he and Calio escaped to Miami Beach, Florida, with Shelley Rubino, an Airlines for America vice president who is Shuster’s girlfriend.


The three lounged by the pool and dined together during festivities tied to Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart’s (R-Fla.) annual weekend fundraising trip. Attendees said it they looked as if they were traveling in a pack.

It’s the most recent example of Shuster’s cozy relationship with the powerful airline association. His panel has jurisdiction over the $160 billion U.S. airline industry.

The FAA bill is critical to the Pennsylvania Republican’s legacy, and to Airlines for America’s members, which include every major airline and cargo carrier in the country except Delta Air Lines. Calio testified that modernizing the air-traffic control system would provide an “immense benefit” to the airlines and their customers.

The bill would spin off the nation’s air-traffic control apparatus into a nonprofit company. The airline industry would have more representation than any other industry on the entity’s board. Pilots would also get a seat, handing the airlines effective control of the air-traffic control system. Regional airlines, which operate roughly half of the nation’s flights, would have no representation on the board.

Shuster’s office did not reply to multiple requests for comment about who paid for the trip or whether it was appropriate to associate so closely with top representatives for the airline industry at the the same time the FAA bill is under consideration in Congress.

In an April Politico story detailing Shuster’s relationship with Rubino, the eight-term congressman insisted that the couple did not mix business and professional issues. Shuster said his office “has in place a policy that deals with personal relationships that cover my staff and myself. This was created in consultation with legal counsel and goes further than is required by the law. Under that policy, Ms. Rubino doesn’t lobby my office, including myself and my staff.”

Last year, Shuster revived a long-stalled priority of the airline industry that allowed airline companies to advertise the price of a ticket without including fees and taxes. Shuster’s close ties to the industry have been an issue in his primary campaign this year against Art Halvorson, who lost to Shuster in 2014 and is trying to oust him again.

A4A, meanwhile, said Shuster and Calio have “known each other for decades.”

“Mr. Calio frequently attends Republican [and Democratic] fundraising trips, and it is not unusual that they would be at the same work-related political event,” said A4A spokeswoman Jean Medina in a statement. “Chairman Shuster has been a leader on driving change as part of the FAA reauthorization process, for the good of the economy and the traveling and shipping public, not for any one entity, and to suggest otherwise is highly inappropriate.”

Several lobbyists on the fundraising trip were taken aback by the closeness displayed by Shuster, Calio and Rubino as they mingled at the Shelbourne Wyndham Grand hotel on posh Collins Avenue in South Beach. These sources requested anonymity, not wanting to antagonize a powerful committee chairman and the largest airline lobby.

Multiple attendees said the trio spent much of the trip together, hanging out poolside on deck chairs in front of a cabana that was rented for the weekend fundraiser. The three also took a private shuttle organized by Calio with others to a dinner Saturday night at Garcia’s Seafood Grille & Fish Market, a well-known Cuban restaurant in Miami, the sources said.

The airlines’ favorable treatment in the FAA bill hasn’t gone unnoticed.

At the hearing where Calio testified, several transportation committee members criticized the proposed makeup of the 11-member nonprofit board that would oversee air-traffic control, saying it should include slots for regional airlines or consumer representatives.

“We’ve got basically four [airlines] now, and if they’re going to run this FAA, I don’t think the consumer is going to get the right representation on that board,” Alaska GOP Rep. Don Young said.

Calio countered at the hearing: “Well, to many people, two general aviation [spots] seems like an awful lot, given the use of the airspace and who pays what for the airspace. … Frankly, we thought we should’ve had more seats.”

At a committee markup on the bill the next day, the panel approved an amendment adding two seats to the nonprofit company’s board — one for aerospace manufacturers and the other for the business aviation industry. The airlines retained their four seats.

Advancing the FAA bill has not been easy and it faces a number of obstacles to get through Congress. First, Shuster agreed to practically exempt much of Alaska’s air-traffic control apparatus from the bill after Young, a former transportation committee chairman, threatened to vote against the bill. Almost every House and Senate appropriator opposes the measure because of concerns that the air-traffic control plan would shift spending power away from Capitol Hill.

The bill was expected on the floor this week, but a vote has been delayed as further changes are required to gain support.

Heather Caygle contributed to this report.

