The AIRLINE INDUSTRY BLOWS...AND SO DOES CONGRESS

The BBQ Pit
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As much as I would like to sit down and make this a really long, well thought out, properly documented rant, I’m just going to make my first post pretty direct and let you follow the one link I will provide.

First I have to say that I work for Delta Air Lines. I love my job more than anyone I know; I’m happy with my own personal wage; and I show up for work with a good attitude and perform to the best of my ability.

BUT I AM SICK AND TIRED OF WATCHING EXECUTIVES OF ALL AIRLINES LINING THEIR POCKETS WHILE TELLING BOTH THE EMPLOYEES AND CONGRESS THAT THEY ARE GOING BROKE. GO FUCK YOURSELVES!

The airline industry had serious economic problems long before 9/11 and anybody with half a clue and a pulse knows it. I’ve worked for you bastards for over 20 years and watch shit like this happen everyday in some form or another. Read airline history. While the employees have to fall on their sword for the company and end up with little or nothing ( Go talk to someone from United, Eastern, Braniff) to show for it, the airline execs move on to bigger things with a pocket full of cash and a pension. THAT’S BULLSHIT!. How long will it be before people, especially those we’ve elected to represent us, figure out that JOE BAGGAGE HANDLER/TICKET AGENT/FLIGHT ATTENDANT/PILOT DON’T SET CORPORATE POLICY, NOR DO THEY CREATE THE MAKE IT UP AS YOU GO BUSINESS PLAN?

The airline industy is about to get a 2nd gov’t bailout in less than 2 years, and taxpayers are going to pay for it. Once again I say BULLSHIT! If taxpayers allow this to happen they get everything they deserve from air travel. As someone from the inside I can see where all of this is headed for both the employees and the traveling public. As painful as it would be, Congress needs to let a badly managed industry have its weakest carriers fail. What ever happened to free markets and letting businesses fail or prosper on their own merits. Delta Air lines just gave millions of dollars worth of perks to the executives while telling the gov’t they’re broke, and telling their employees that it’s a damn shame, but some of you got to go.

HEY LEO MULLIN, GLAD YOUR PENSION IS O.K. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO PROTECT MINE WHEN YOU WALK AWAY FROM THIS FUCKING DISASTER, YOU SORRY MOTHER FUCKER. Unlike you I have actually had to show up for all of my 20 plus years to “earn” my pension ( whatever’s going to be left of it), while you were given 22 years of “credit” for time served before you even worked one day. I guess a pension isn’t something you earn.

**I ONLY HOPE THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE AVIATION COMMITTEES REMEMBER THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE A PENSION TO STILL HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE. IF THEY VOTE TO APPROVE THIS BAILOUT THEY WILL BE SCREWING EVERYBODY…EXCEPT, OF COURSE, AIRLINE EXECUTIVES **

contact your senator/representative and urge them not to do this!

Here’s a link to the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s airline page. It has plenty of stories concerning all the airlines.

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/business/delta/

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On the bright side, I got a good deal on a ticket to Hawaii the other day. Yay!

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For a first post, I’m impressed. Needs more goat-felching, though. Or a loincloth.

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Damn, I thought this rant was going to be about a new service on Hooters Air.

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I don’t have much to add, as i feel exactly the same way that you do. What really pissed me off is that when the government handed out the massive bailout package to the airlines after 9/11, the did not attach any conditions to the money in terms of employee job security. The airlines said thanks for the cahs, and still laid off or reduced the hours of thousands of employees. I think that if we’re going to hand public money to private industry, then it should come with the condition that it be used to keep people employed.

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You know what really pissed me off? It was when our biggest competitor was the first and only airline to get the federal funding we were all promised after 9-11. And since the structure of said funding basically made the government a partner in the airline, the government suddenly had a fiduciary interest in seeing my airline go broke - oh look, they got their wish. Well, that makes two airlines in as many years that have bankrupted on me. Great.

The truly rotten thing in all this is that the smaller airlines are trying to provide better service or cheaper fares to the paying public, yet the ones who win out are the same big airlines that charge through the nose and treat their customers like dirt (I should know, I left Arrogant Airlines for bankrupt airline #1, an amazing company that treated our customers like royalty, but made the mistake of playing in the big boy’s backyard)

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Err. If bankrupt airline #1 is US Scare, my 100K plus miles only earned me the ‘casual disdain’ class of treatment. I was treated more like French Royalty visiting with peasants in 1792.

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Actually, it would be more accurate to say that “Congress blows airline executives.” Other than that, spot-on. :smiley:

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I never understand why they don’t let a few of them die off. Can any explain that to a layman?

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I think the families involved wouldn’t be pleased at such an “only the strong survive” philosophy, even though it might be more healthy from an economic perspective (self-correcting industry theory and all). Also, less competition is in general not a good thing.

Jet Blue rules. I get to watch Game Show Network while eating blue potato chips, I really can’t think of anything more blissful.

Hey anyone know how much airline pilots pull in per year? My buddy is in flight school for the Navy, and indicates that that’s what he’d like to do after he’s done with all the “Push Button, Drop Bomb” type stuff.

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Smeghead gets a cheap ticket to Hawaii

** good for you. I lived in Hawaii during the “last” airline crisis in the mid 90’s. I was told get layed off or move to Cincinnati. BOY DID I FUCK MYSELF. Should have stayed in the islands and actually enjoyed not working in the airline industy, but sometimes you think you have too much invested to just say FUCK IT. Another lesson learned.

By the way, did you notice that Hawaiian Air lines filed bankruptcy last week, and their major creditor is accusing the CEO of lining his own groups pockets with the 1st post 9/11 bail out money?

enjoy Hawaii and take not of the depressed economy. Japan Air lines has decided to reduce capacity there by 50%, and will significantly affect the economy there. Probably get you a cheaper room now too.

You might also want to check out a vacation in Las Vegas. Article in the paper there says they don’t have enough airline capacity there to fill hotel rooms. Hmmm, chicken or the egg, and the cart before the horse. Hotels build additions based on tourism and airline capacity, then airline fails (see National Air Lines) and seat capacity fails to return. Hence fewer seats to Vegas and fewer people to fill hotel rooms. Hmmm, might be a cheap hotel room there I bet.

Oh, and I bet all those passengers on vacation in Vegas when National went chapter 7 thought they had a cheap ticket too. At least until they tried to check in for a non existant return flight.

DID YOU SEE THAT AIR CANADA FILED CHAPTER 13 LAST WEEK?

How about that Hooter’s Air thing? Just another example of the kind of thinking that exists in the airline industy. GEE I CAN AFFORD TO BUY AN AIRPLANE…MAYBE I SHOULD START AN AIRLINE. OR BETTER YET, MAYBE YOU SHOULD BUY A VOWEL AND DO SOME MATH…HOW MANY AIRLINES ARE MAKING MONEY, AND FOR HOW LONG?

Maybe that’s the solution. We should all go into business for ourselves, and make sure that it’s a business that we know we can make fail, because while we line our executive pocket with cash we can get multiple bailouts from the gov’t until we pay off the yacht, estate in Costa Rica, and all those condoms we’re gonna need for all the people we’re gonna fuck. I’m going to get my secretary working on that bygones letter.

IN THE END WE REALLY DO GET WHAT WE ALL DESERVE. SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST IN DENIAL ABOUT IT. AT LEAST IF YOU PAY ATTENTION YOU MIGHT GET ENOUGH TIME TO DUCK.**

Aloha

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If a post in all caps is someone yelling, is a post in all bold someone using an outdoor voice indoors?

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I couldn’t find a loincloth

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I’m just going to visit my sister…