Call It Coincidence, or Corruption

[cpzilliacus]

[This is about the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but is not directly highway-related, hence posting it here.]

N.Y. Times: Call It Coincidence, or Corruption

In a fabulous coincidence, if you prefer fables to scandal, United Airlines started a twice-weekly, money-losing flight to Columbia, S.C., that just happened to be handy for a powerful public official in New Jersey who had a weekend home nearby in Aiken.

A few days after the public official resigned from his position in March 2014, the airline canceled the flight.

Just one of those things.

Or for those with a bias for the plausible, there is the alternative version of how this flight came into being, first reported in February by The Record, and then elaborated in delectable detail this week by Bloomberg Business.

The flights are now part of a federal investigation into operatives of Gov. Chris Christie at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that began with the infamous traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013.

Two years earlier, over dinner at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority, entertained requests for help from executives with United Airlines, which has become the largest carrier at Newark Liberty International Airport since its merger with Continental.