flyingsux wrote in news:s9tsn0lu5k3hhk0kvma5lqqhg0jie07k06
@4ax.com:
> I have always maintained that airlines, and other companies that
> provide a public service which requires a huge national
> infrastructure, should not operate under cut-throat free market
> competition. Airline deregulation was a HUGE mistake. Airlines, like
> trains and buses, are public transportation. They exist to provide a
> public service for the good of all and the country, not to make
> shareholders and CEOs rich. It's not like we don't have ample
> evidence, i.e. Lorenzo, Icahn, et al. It seems to me you can either
> operate a national public transportation system charging reasonable
> (regulated or semi-regulated) prices so that the companies providing
> the service can stay in business, or you subject them to free market
> competition and watch as company after company goes under, millions
> lose their jobs, the few who keep them work for $6/hr, and there is no
> job security. Too many examples of the latter to cite. You just
> cannot serve two masters. Either you're for the good of the people
> and the country as a whole, or for the rich shareholders and CEOs.
> Can't do both.
Well, in the old regulated system, there's no incentive for anyone to
cut cost at all. I think the reason the legacies are failing is they
suffer from the after effects of all of this. I think Southwest is a
good example of a company whose employees are well paid and secure, and
are always striving to improve. Others will have to fall in line or
Southwest will continue to swallow them up.
The role of government is to insure safe operation and fair competition.
And I feel they are doing a lousy job of both. The fact that a regional
jet pilot can work 16 straight hours with a dozen or so takeoffs and
landings in one shift is immoral. The way slots are handled at airports
is plain wrong. Why should the airline own them instead of the airport?
The airline should use them or they should revert to the airport and be
sold to the highest bidder.
Ironically one of the biggest losers in unionization are the employees.
Because everything is run on seniority, once you have a few years in a
given airline the penalty for switching is so large that you will rarely
do so, and so you are a captive of the airline. I know in my career I
made huge leaps forward by hopping from company to company as my
marketability increased, and the ability to hop without penalty made it
much easier for me to control where I lived, etc.
--lw-- |