Aviation News

An Airline By Legislator For Legislators

Florida Legislature is back in session, state senators, representatives and legislative staffers are taking wing between home and Tallahassee.And for some of those VIPs, that means flying the particularly friendly skies of Fort Lauderdale-based SouperKruser Airline.

Never heard of SouperKruser? Neither did we until we started looking at government invoices.

SouperKruser, it turns out, is the whimsically named air charter business of state Sen. Walter G. Skip Campbell, the Tamarac Democrat, Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyer and part-time pilot. Its a money-losing operation, says Campbell, which operates out of a private terminal at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Still, travelers on SouperKrusers twin-engine, seven-seat Beechcraft King Air E90 go in style. No worries about jam-packed airport parking garages. No leg cramps, or crying babies in the next seat. And enough on-board luxury -- public records show the King Airs features include a wet bar, a hot bar and an entertainment system -- to lure big-name charter customers like NBC news anchorman Tom Brokaw, golfer Greg Norman and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Since 1997, a few months after Campbell took office and incorporated SouperKruser in Delaware, Campbells customer list also has included a host of Campbells fellow legislators and state staffers traveling on official business. Their flights, mostly between Fort Lauderdale and the capital, have been paid for by the state.

At least one local agency, the Broward Sheriffs Office, also has paid for a flight aboard Campbells plane.

We dont push it. I dont market it, says Campbell. They are doing it for the convenience. They get up here quicker and typically with more comfort. They dont have the hassles of going to an airport and waiting.

How much has government paid to Campbell for those passengers?

We found about $ 5,000 worth of flights in a limited review of expense vouchers and other state payment records. The actual amount is certainly higher, but officials who administer legislative travel records say a thorough search of expense vouchers is prohibitive. And Campbell says his company doesnt maintain any billing records after SouperKrusers invoices are paid.

Whatever the grand total, however, its in addition to the $ 12,700 Campbell was reimbursed by the state for his own travel on those same SouperKruser flights.

That brand of double dipping on expenses is legal thanks to a 10-year-old Florida law that gives preferential treatment to certain owners of private aircraft who transport public officials and employees.

Under the law, state travelers are forbidden from collecting either mileage or transportation expense when gratuitously transported by another person or when transported by another traveler who is entitled to mileage or transportation expense.

In other words, official business travelers cant collect twice for the same trip.

Yet the same law carves out an exception for the owners of private airplanes like Campbells $ 750,000 King Air. They can bill the state for passengers, up to the cost of a comparable airline ticket, even though the owner or pilot of such aircraft is also entitled to transportation expense for the same flight.

It seems logical to me. It costs more on a plane than on an automobile, says Campbell, who says SouperKruser flights cost him $ 650 an hour. The money goes into the accounts to pay for the financing, pay for the gas, pay for the maintenance and pay for the pilot.

Today, the fares SouperKruser can charge official state passengers are limited to the amounts set in the states contract with commercial airlines. Thats currently a round-trip rate of $ 289 from Fort Lauderdale to Tallahassee, flights that take about an hour and a half each way.

Airfares were significantly higher between August 1998 and January when that contract was temporarily suspended by the Legislature.

So, who has flown as an official state passenger on SouperKruser?

Heres an abbreviated headcount based on Campbells admittedly incomplete recollection and those limited state records. (Campbell declined to make public any flight logs, manifests or other records that might identify those passengers and show how often they flew.)

State Sens. James A. Scott, R-Fort Lauderdale; Muriel Mandy Dawson, D-Fort Lauderdale; Ron Klein, D-Delray Beach; Lisa Carlton, R-Osprey; John McKay, R-Bradenton; Tom Rossin, D-West Palm Beach and former Sen. Charlie Crist, R-St. Petersburg.

State Reps. John C. Rayson, D-Pompano Beach; Josephus Eggelletion Jr. D-Lauderdale Lakes; Debbie Sanderson, R-Fort Lauderdale; Tim Ryan, D-Dania Beach; Ron Greenstein, D-Coconut Creek; and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston.

Wasserman Schultz, current leader of the Broward delegation, recalls flying twice on Campbells plane. Other passengers were aboard, but she cant remember who they were.

Its just a plain plane, says Wasserman Schultz.

Then there are the aides and secretaries to those legislators whove also flown on SouperKruser, including members of Campbells staff. Campbell collects from the state for ferrying the staffers, too.

Of course I do. Im generous, but not that generous, says Campbell, who last summer was identified by the Palm Beach Post as Floridas wealthiest legislator, with a reported net worth of $ 11 million.

One of Campbells former aides, Russ Oster, a passenger on SouperKruser at least 10 times while working for the senator, liked the ride so much he flew SouperKruser again after he quit in 1998 to take a job as the Broward Sheriffs Offices legislative lobbyist. Oster, whose most recent job was leading the failed campaign to establish a strong mayor in Broward, was reimbursed by the sheriffs office for a $ 358 check he wrote to SouperKruser for a round-trip flight to Tallahassee in February 1999.

Other lobbyists, too, have flown as paying passengers aboard SouperKruser.

Some have come with us when there was a place, says Campbell. They pay. I dont see any problem with that.

Campbell couldnt recall which lobbyists had flown, but confirmed one of them was his longtime friend, ex-Plantation policeman Dave Ericks.

In contrast to Campbell is Sen. Donald Sullivan, R-St. Petersburg. Sullivan, who owns a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza and chooses not to bill the state for fellow legislators or other state employees who fly with him. He cites two reasons.

The first is that he can afford not to bill the state for passengers because the reimbursement he gets for himself covers most of his flight costs. He estimates the costs for his smaller plane are about half what it costs Campbell to operate SouperKruser.

Likewise, says Sullivan, It doesnt cost me any more to fly up and back with passengers. So its not that important to where I thought I should bother with going through all the paperwork. I guess I just thought I was coming up anyway, so I was glad to be going up with company

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