Remember this from 2001?
In the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks involving hijacked airplanes, Congress Friday passed a measure for a $15 billion financial aid package to help the crippled airline industry and set up a government compensation fund for victims to help deter lawsuits.
The House approved the measure late Friday night, 356-54. The Senate passed the package earlier in the day, 96-1.
The White House response was quick with press secretary Ari Fleischer saying in a statement: “A safe, viable and effective commercial air travel system is important to America’s economy and to our way of life.”
“The president commends the Congress for its quick bipartisan passage of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act.
“This legislation will help ensure the safety and stability of the nation’s vital commercial airline system.”
The measure gives the nation’s airlines $5 billion in immediate cash assistance and $10 billion in loan guarantees in an effort to keep several major carriers from collapsing. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., was the only senator to vote against the bill.
Like they did on almost everything for the year following 9/11, the President proposed really stupid and damaging stuff and the Congress rubber-stamped it. We continually deal with the fallout of that age of compliance and will for the foreseeable future. I can already guess that some lobbyist somewhere is prepping a campaign to go to Washington and yet again snooker us about the most recent airline disaster.
More than almost any other industry the airlines have gotten away with running a shoddy business while treating their customers like a stain on their shoes. It’s high time we let them just sink on their own and thin the herd for the businesses who perform well and respond to their consumers.
That was then. Now, not so much.
As I said at Balloon Juice, I am willing to pay you money and literally put my life in your hands. Is it too much to expect that the airtight metal cylinder you cram me in is safe to occupy?
Get with the program. Bailing out huge corporations is the American Way. Pony up your paycheck in that line over there.
If the airlines fail we can expect that passenger rail would increase. The only benefit of air travel is the time savings. With most business travel, a laptop and wireless on a cross-country trip would be more than adequate. Oh. The bizness world hates it. It means hiring more comptetent people instead of making do with one that flies constantly.
Passenger rail in many corridors is faster. For example, from Washington-NY-Philadelphia-Boston. Rail service generally goes center city to center city, saving the transfers on each side. A rail system like they have in France with the TGV would probably cut into airline dominance on short haul flats.
Alas, it will probably not come to pass.
Oh yeah? But is rail travel safer?
I once heard of a train barreling down the rail when WHAM!!! CRASH!!! all 240 passengers and crew killed in a fiery wreck. 565 People dead all told when you include the passengers of the plane that fell on it.
Think twice before getting on that train.
Warren Buffet is known for saying that nobody ever earned a profit on an airline, and that their bottom lines are dependent on unpredictable government largesse.
It’s tough to argue with that.
Unlike other industries, since deregulation the airlines have never been able to charge the price it truly costs to fly. $200 to get to Vegas from Cincinnati? WTF? Yes that’s what my husband paid and I know it wasn’t even half the true cost of getting there.
Since it is very easy to start up an airline, put it in a market to drive down prices to the bone for all carriers, and then go belly up it is done time and again. Look at the track record of start up airlines. As one comic said it’s the easiest way to make a billion dollars worth a million.
If the flying public wants better service, better planes, etc. they have to be willing to pay for it, like the old days before deregulation turned the airlines into a ponzi scheme.
Cons see the government as an ATM machine for Wall St
No doubt. Look at Southwest Air.
G in INdiana: If the flying public wants better service, better planes, etc. they have to be willing to pay for it
And if the customer isn’t willing to pay for it, your business will fail. Fair enough. Fine with me. It’s called “the market”.
Is a basic tenet of our capitalist system not OK with you?
Absolutely let them fail. I agree with that completely and without reservation. I don’t think the government should contribute anything to bailing out any business, no matter the size.
But a question: when someone who used to work at one of these failed airlines reaches the point of losing his home to foreclosure, what should the government do then?
I’m sure the unions that represent airline workers would be thrilled to see many of their members lose their jobs, and those who remain have their salaries reduced.