Prior to that “tragedy” that we’re all familiar with, I was quite the frequent user of the airlines. I bounced from east coast to west coast, northern borders to southern borders, and I enjoyed it. Alot of my trips were sponsored by the companies I worked for, but many were done purely for fun. In admitting this, I want to point out that I don’t have it in for flying, I do not dispute that it’s a safe form of flying, even considering evil terrorist agendas. I haven’t flown since 9/11 simply because of economic and employment constraints on the budget. That brings me to my rant today about news from Northwest Airlines (the only hub for them is right here in Minnesota).
Here in MinneSNOWtah we have a council that runs our airport, they are called the “MAC”. They signed a contract awile back to land NWA here in the Twin Cities. Upon doing so, NWA made the MAC sign an agreement which essentially said NWA was going to be the ONLY airline that had it’s hub here, in return for the deal NWA would make Minnesota it’s home. There is a facility in Duluth, MN that does alot of repair jobs, and all of our less than International-Size Airports are serviced through Messaba, an airline company that joined forces with NWA to provide services for our smaller airports. So if ever there was a monopoly in my state with airline companies, NWA has the board. That’s not to say other airlines don’t stop or make connection flights here, but none of them are allowed to have over a certain percentage of terminals in our MSP airport.
Since NWA came to town, we’ve seen a lot of rollercoaster ups and downs. Some of them have pointed out to the public that even after we have subsidized NWA, they continued to pay their executives millions in perks and benefits while at the same time forcing it’s employee’s to take less pay, less benefits, yet continue on as if the “Company’s future depends on you”.
The situation with the airlines, and especially with NWA has gotten worse. First of all, in my constant vigil of articles lately at my site concerning illegal immigration and such, the airline industry who would have us all believe that they are keeping their nose clean post 9/11 but they were busted for hiring illegal immigrants to work on their aircraft. In this new round of lay-offs that NWA is threatening the mechanics union with many in the mechanics union feel that this is nothing more than a ploy by the executives to force them to take more concessions after it was uncovered that NWA plans to outsource alot of it’s work overseas. Another blogger talked about it here as well.
In any case, the people who play the internal politics within the airline industry should think long and hard about what they are doing. Alot of these so-called airline companies are just shells considering the massive amount of taxpayer dollars we have dished out to bail them out of fiscally irresponsible business policies. If you look at all that the government has to write checks for, as it pertains to security, regulations, and buyouts, it’s little more than a Government entity with the appearance of competing corporations. Take for example, all the little fees you have to pay when you book travel online. Take into consideration all the little hoops you have to jump through to get to the airport, check in at the ticket counter, go through the government mandated security check points, to no longer getting a first rate meal on your plane ride even tho your ticket cost you $500. The airline industry, if we can call it that, is SO inefficient, it charges each person differently for the same plane ride. Now, those folks in the pricing department would have you believe that it’s a smart way to book seats, but if Greyhound or Amtrak operated as sloppy as NWA, or United does, we’d never have mass transit again.
The AP ran this story today about guesstimates concerning future travel numbers into 2015. I think it’s rediculous to think that future travel has any bearing on today’s airline industry, unless you think of the airline industry in government terms. And in doing so, you have to agree that the airline industry needs to either cut the government purse strings and manage on their own, or fold up their tents, hand over their planes and their employees to the government once and for all.
