Tail Numbers in BARR Program Available Through FOIA

In late February, a District Court judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that tail numbers blocked for distribution outside of the FAA through NBAA’s Block Aircraft Registration Request (BARR) program must be unblocked to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica submitted the FOIA request in late 2008 — around the time that the Big Three automakers' executives flew on corporate jets to discuss government aid for the companies.

After the FAA decided to grant the FOIA request, NBAA took legal action in 2009 to enjoin the release of the tail numbers.

Any party filing an FOIA request may now receive a raw list of tail numbers submitted to the FAA-level block list.

"NBAA has long believed that security and other imperatives make it absolutely essential to protect our Members’ aircraft and flight information from being made widely available, which is why we created the BARR program," Bob Lamond, NBAA director of air traffic services and infrastructure, said.

ProPublica's general manager, Richard Tofel, called the list of tail numbers "a subject of public interest."

What do you think about the BARR program? Should the tail numbers be blocked permanently? Where do you fall on the public/private spectrum? Leave a comment.

Comments

[Gary]

I think that all tail numbers and or flight information should be made public. The reason being there are a lot of corporations using corporate aircraft for leisure travel and I'm sure if customers and employes knew of theses "business travel" they would not be to happy. What gives a corporation the right to hide anything from the public especial when the public owns the company I.E stock and shareholders. I think its a sad time when you have all kinds of people struggling to pay for medication and insurance. When you see a pharmaceutical company bringing in a multi-million dollar jet to take doctors and hospital reps out to aspen for a week of play just in hope of selling a product. Insurance companys have the same "policy's". I wouldn't want people to know what I was doing also if it wasn't for the right reason espesaly when the price for a gallon of jet fuel is close to and more the $6.