Our Frequent Flyers

In what must have been an exhausting exercise, some academic wonks and good-government-type journos (namely, grad students at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism and CPB's Marketplace, American RadioWorks) spent months combing the travel records of our members of Congress since 2000, detailing who travels the most (Louisiana's former Senator John Breaux) and who foots the bill. And New York's got two Congressmen - Maurice Hinchey and Greg Meeks - in the top 10! Here are the top frequent flyers in New York's current and former Congressional delegation since 2000: Maurice Hinchey ($152,169.25) Gregory Meeks ($126,690.08) Joseph Crowley ($79,807.23) Eliot Engel ($67,471.23) Amo Houghton ($44,539.43) Nita Lowey ($43,452.95) ... and the rundown of some of the rest: Hillary Clinton ($31,047.74) Carolyn Maloney ($26,157.72) Major Owens ($25,049.02) Charlie Rangel ($18,821.00) Anthony Weiner ($16,756.71) Steve Israel ($14,556.24) Chuck Schumer ($13,738.00) Vito Fossella ($9,588.78) Pete King ($9,311.82) ... including a few stay-at-home types: Nydia Velazquez ($766.64) Among the priciest excursions were Maloney's $12,665 trip to Doha, Qatar, and Meeks' $17,194 trip to Mumbai, India. And who could turn down NASDAQ's March 2003 meeting in Miami (not Vito or Greg) or the Aspen Institute's February 2000 conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico (not Eliot or Gary Ackerman)? And Nita must really be a fan of the Aspen Institute - over the years, she's been to its summits in Helsinki, Finland; Punta Mita, Mexico; Great Exuma Island, the Bahamas; and Honolulu.