Bernie Sanders, like all of us, has some valid gripes about air travel today. He’s come out with a set of solutions he’d like the Department of Transportation to impose through new regulation. This includes forcing airlines to skip crucial maintenance, and requiring flight attendants to work when they’re sick with Covid-19.
In order to keep everyone employed and ready to fly when passengers come back, airlines lost staff. Delta eliminated more than one third of its employees. American pilots were paid to stay home rather than make sure their takeoffs and landings were up to date. American and Delta retired their planes.
Airlines don't have enough staff to operate flights now that demand is back Several carriers have cut their schedules back in advance. The FAA is understaffed in air traffic control, but that isn't the main problem.
Time is needed to hire and train. The airlines pushed out veterans during the Pandemic. They drafted their own language and this was legal.
What should be done about airline failures? The senator wants three things.
A nervous democratic socialist in first class. #FeelTheBern pic.twitter.com/XbONXNBZNn
— Hank Thomas (@HankThomasDC) February 13, 2020
Passengers who face delays are entitled to a refunds. One hour delay means zero revenue and full cost of travel, plus airlines must be required to cover the meals and lodging for all passengers in order to be considered signficant.
For every four hour delay, passengers would be entitled to a free hotel room. Weather, government air traffic control, security, or customs and immigration issues are not exceptions.
Reducing the threshold from 4 and 3 hours to 3 and 2 hours doesn't seem to be related to the issues airlines are having at the moment There have been some long tarmac delays in Texas due to weather, where planes divert and can't be brought into the gate and pilots decide it's unsafe to disembark an aircraft due to lightning. Fines aren't due in those cases. The proposal is non-sequitur
A $4.6 million fine would be imposed on American Airlines if they were to delay the plane for more than 2 hours. It is a strong incentive for preventative maintenance, but it is also a deterrent to address maintenance issues on the spot.
The issue is borderline. It's too costly to make the right decision. In contract negotiations, it gives an operational gun to pilots. It is not only the passengers that are affected by pilots working to rule, but the airlines as well.
If the fine only applies to delays and not cancelations, the airline will be forced to cancel down line flights as well.
In order to avoid customers getting stuck at the airport and ruining their trips, airlines have been shortening their schedules.
They have been publishing schedules they would like to operate, and then adjusting them based on facts on the ground such as Covid restrictions, closed borders, and aircraft not available because of regulatory challenges between the FAA and Boeing.
If an airline cancels a flight because they don't have enough staff, they will have to pay $55,000 per passenger. Airlines can't cancel flights due to staffing. Scheduling their planes to fly is a must if they want to operate profitably. Since it takes time to fully staff, it is the only way out.
During the peak holiday period, American Airlines offered bonus pay for picking up extra flights and a huge attendance bonus. Flight attendants were making more money. The crew were showing up sick because of this overlap.
When a flight attendant just needs to work one more week without missing a trip in order to pocket an extra couple months' pay, it's hard to stay home. There was a lot of this in December. It is what all airlines would have to do.
Government protects and subsidizes the airline industry. Government-owned airports should stop entering long-term gate lease that exclude new carriers. A government-granted property right that says only incumbent carriers may fly should be eliminated and replaced with congestion pricing. Foreign ownership of US airlines should be allowed. The liability shield courts have concluded exists in the Airline Deregulation Act and should be repealed.
We should hold airlines responsible for their actions towards consumers, stop them from picking our pockets, and allow competition to flourish in the industry. In order to grow capacity, we should expand use of airport P3 programs and spin off air traffic control into a separate entity, so that the FAA isn't regulating itself.
The senator flew first class on American Airlines to Pittsburgh to campaign for Summer Lee, who is running for congress in Pennsylvania. There was a masked person.
In airlines.
Business travelers are like creatures of habit. Yes, I do. You have staff who enforce those preferences and donors who pay for them when you are a senator. The Senator's travel requirements were outlined in a 'comfort memo'.
It was in hotels.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and several Senate colleagues announced a letter to the CEOs of major U.S. airlines demanding "full cash refunds to all customers who cancel their flights during the COVID 19 crisis." They want more than just refunds.
In airlines.
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