[blockquote]
----------------
On 10/18/2002 2:34:44 PM exjetgurl wrote:
Gee whiz Gordo! He's on a roll. Read the latest in Air Transport World:[/P]
[/P]
[STRONG][FONT face=Arial color=#990000]Continental's chairman blames the government for the company's losses[/FONT][/STRONG]
[FONT face=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular color=black size=2]In announcing the airline's quarterly net loss of $37 million, Gordon Bethune said the company would have been profitable had it not been for added security costs, lost revenue and increased taxes imposed by the government. [A href="http://rdr.sbml.cc/Click?q=d3-GZOkQJP56BgYh6GK7ipM2DAm" target=_blank]Air Transport World[/A][FONT face=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular color=#666666 size=2 xmlns:url="http://www.jclark.com/xt/java/java.net.URLEncoder"] (10/18)[/FONT][/FONT][/P]
[A href="http://www.atwonline.com/indexfull.cfm?newsid=2394"]http://www.atwonline.com/indexfull.cfm?newsid=2394[/A][/P]
[/P]
[/P]
----------------
[/blockquote]
Well, in a sense, he's right. More than the terrorists, more than the Iraqis, the reason for our mess is deregulation. Instead of a stable industry, that focuses on service and safety, we are interested in shipping cattle around with little regard for their comfort or safety. Cheapest is best.
True, our immediate problems were caused by scum like Wolf and Gangwal, but the horrible losses are being incurred because we can't charge people reasonable prices for tickets. They think they can fly to LAX for less than it takes to drive. Your car doesn't fly at 9/10th of the speed of sound, nor does it cost millions of dollars. It doesn't require years of training to fix it or fly it. Nor does it serve you even peanuts and coke. But, the public has got horny over the $39 round trip Southwest specials, forgetting that the reason why there are $39 specials are because a businessman is being charged $1800 for the same flight. Now the businessman thinks he should pay $39 too and THE MATH DOESN'T ADD UP.
So, in the end, thank Jimmy Carter. Maybe his Habitat for Humanity friends can build some homes for those of us who are homeless and jobless because of his silly little idea.