Private Aircraft Flight Records Probed by WSJ

In light of the debate over the renewal of the Block Aircraft Registration Request (BARR) program, the Saturday, May 21, edition of The Wall Street Journal has a front-page investigation of four years of private aircraft flight records (registration required), and the paper has launched an online database of the flight data.

The aviation industry has been lobbying on behalf of the program, which must be included in the final legislation that reconciles the Senate and House bills that reauthorize the FAA. The House bill preserves BARR. The Senate bill does not.

This development might have more visibility than ProPublica's reporting, which had been in the works since the appearance of the Big Three automakers' executives at Congress in late 2008.

What do you think about these reports? How does BARR affect you or your business? What would happen if BARR were not preserved?