The Allegheny County Airport Authority has posted a glowing “news” story on its website touting how two Pittsburgh firms have opened offices in the British Isles.
So, why would the Airport Authority post such a release? To imply that taxpayer-subsidized efforts to return, retain and expand British Airways service to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) are paying off, we can only assume.
But the authority’s news release does not say this directly; it only alludes to it in general terms. And that’s likely because it can’t directly make the claim. And that’s because neither of the two Pittsburgh firms mentioned make that direct claim, either. At least not in the authority’s tale.
In a news release heavy on what we’ll call “sleight of verbiage,” the Airport Authority notes that global law firm K&L Gates has announced it has opened a branch office in Dublin, “it’s 48th worldwide and ninth in Europe, including London, Frankfurt and Paris.”
The news release links to a statement from a K&L official about the move. But the law firm’s news releases makes no mention of British Airways in any way, shape or form.
Neither does a link to the second firm — Marinus Analytics, a company that the Airport Authority release notes “relies on technology first developed at Carnegie Mellon University to combat human trafficking and other organized crime online.”
“The company partners with law enforcement agencies and others to offer data-driven analysis that can assist investigations into cybercrime and fraud. London will be home to its first international office,” it says.
It goes on to quote the company’s director of UK and European operations: “The concrete answer to the question ‘Why an office in London?’ is that we need a base here, we need a team here to help service the client base that the company has managed to grow already here.”
The Airport Authority goes on to note that the Marinus official “was part of a contingent of local business leaders and elected officials organized by Pittsburgh International Airport and VisitPittsburgh that traveled to London in October as part of a trade mission to encourage British Airways to increase its nonstop flights to Pittsburgh.”
But a link to Marinus’ website is just that; there’s no claim that British Airways had anything to do with the decision to open the new London office. In fact, we could only find – and a hard find it was – a passing mention of the U.K. expansion on the company’s website.
The Airport Authority’s curious and carefully written (or is it disingenuously written?) news release has all the markings of a “See! See! See!” effort to justify the unjustifiable $3.5 million public subsidy to British Airways.
Would K&L Gates and Marinus have done what they did without the British Airways subsidized flights? We don’t know. Neither does the Allegheny County Airport Authority. And that’s the point.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
