Easley's 'business trip' is a mystery

Gov. Mike Easley is on the road this week, but he won't say exactly why.

Easley took a state jet to Philadelphia on Monday for an economic summit with President-elect Barack Obama and other governors.

He also attended an informal governors get-together Monday night, eating across the table from Georgia's Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.

According to publicly available flight records, the Cessna Citation twin-jet plane left Philadelphia International at 1:33 p.m. Tuesday for Reagan National Airport in Washington.

After a three-hour layover, the plane was scheduled to go to Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., arriving Tuesday night.

A flight plan filed with the N.C. Department of Commerce, also a public record, shows that the plane won't leave Florida until 1 p.m. Thursday.

Although the flight records are widely available on the Internet and through public records, spokeswoman Renee Hoffman would not discuss Easley's travel plans "for security reasons" and gave only a vague answer about his reasons for stopping in Washington and Florida.

"I can tell you that the governor is on a business trip to make a speech and attend a meeting," she said in an e-mail message.

The flight plan shows that Easley is traveling with executive counsel Ruffin Poole and a sergeant from the N.C. Highway Patrol.