Re: Judy's proposal

Dave Kehs (kehs@aonix.com)
Thu, 09 Oct 1997 15:14:49 -0400


Benjamin Harding wrote:

> First, you assume that there won't be an NPS wait list for
> commercial customers; instead, each company would
> maintain their own wait list. Here's my question--how would NPS
> know, with reasonable certainty, how long the wait for
> commercial customers is if the lists are maintained by the
> concessionaires? How would you insure that the data given to
> NPS are realistic. I know you're sensitive about how commercial
> operators are portrayed, but I'll bet you that many of them
> fudge on their income taxes--things like personal vehicles
> claimed as business vehicles and the like. Is it possible
> they'll fudge on their reporting requirements to the NPS? What
> safeguards would be appropriate?

This information isn't secret. If you call up a company and
say that you want to go on a trip (as a paying customer) and
they tell you that there are no openings until the year 2001,
you know that they are booked for three years. If they tell
you that you can pick any date you want for next season, you
know that the waiting time will be less than one year.

When I was thinking of a 1997 trip, the company I was
interested in sent me a copy of their 1997 schedule with the
number of available spaces for each launch date. Customers
need this kind of information to buy the company's services.

Of course, there wouldn't really be a wait list like there is for
private trips. Customers might have to book a trip 3.6 years
in advance of the launch date, and therefore have to wait 3.6
years, but they wouldn't actually be on a list.

I detect an anti-commercial bias in your message. Do you
really need to accuse them of tax evasion?

Dave Kehs
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