FAA Seminar Draws Wrong Kind of Attention

(Dec. 22) -- As Americans continue to simmer over Wall Street's manhandling of the economy, many of the embattled banks are wisely forgoing annual holiday parties this year. But the federal government may have missed the memo about keeping a low profile.

An undercover ABC News report suggests the Federal Aviation Administration slipped in a three-week holiday boondoggle disguised as a managers meeting earlier this month. The conference cost $5 million and brought 3,600 managers to Atlanta where undercover cameras caught the employees boozing at night.

"Anytime you get a bunch of FAA guys together, it is nothing but a party," one of them told an undercover reporter. Another one said he was ready "to dance on tables shortly," and recalled almost being arrested in St. Louis in 2006 at a similar event. Yet another manager, who should have learned a lesson from the people at ACORN in September, asked one of the undercover reporters if she was a prostitute and told her he "was ready to take out my wallet."

The FAA said the meetings were not a holiday party dressed in a sheep's clothing, but were instead essential training sessions for the managers to learn about the new contract for air traffic controllers, which went into effect on Oct. 1.

"This is worth it because we have to get the frontline managers on board with what we're trying to do," Hank Krakowski, the chief operating officer of the FAA's Air Traffic Operations, told ABC News.

The FAA said the training could not have been accomplished over videoconference.

"Given the complexity of the contract and the need for managers to fully understand it, the training had to be done face to face, not through a memo or Webcast," the FAA said in a statement.

"Anyone who is flying, whose flight has been delayed or canceled could find a lot better usage for $5 million for the FAA," Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group, told ABC News.

Meanwhile, the names made infamous over the last year for excessive spending, lavish parties and misdirected investments have decided to tone it down this holiday season. Bank of America (which received $45 billion in the bailout, all of which has been repaid), Citigroup (which received $50 billion) and Morgan Stanley (which received $10 billion, all of which has been repaid) have all reported they will forgo holiday parties. Goldman Sachs (which received $10 billion, all of which has been repaid) will not hold one either, for the second year running.

Insurance giant AIG (which received $69.8 billion from the government) may be taking a different strategy. The Business Insider reports the insurance giant may be trying to fleece the public by throwing its holiday party in January.

Mark Herr, director of communications for AIG, said in an e-mail to Sphere that the company's policies differ across their many different businesses. He added that his group "just did a potluck."