CNN.com – Report: Pentagon wasted $100M on unused airline tickets – Jun 8, 2004:
Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable, congressional investigators say.
The department compounded the problem by reimbursing employee claims for tickets bought by the Pentagon, the investigators said.
[ . . . ]
A prior report, issued last November, found that the Pentagon bought 68,000 first-class or business-class airline seats for employees who should have flown coach.
68,000 seats would fill 123 Boeing 777-300s or 119 747-400s. Didn’t we already bail out the airlines in the wake of 9/11?
And this all occurs on the party of fiscal restraint’s watch?