› More Congressional Unintended Consequences

Many of you know from hearing my stump speeches that one of life’s great unsolved mysteries to me is how anyone elected to Congress suddenly becomes an expert on everything. The new federal guidelines for fines against the airlines for takeoff delayed flights, running $27,500 per passenger are a great example of Congressional stupidity. As a thirty-one year veteran of the airline and aviation industry I could not remain silent on this one.

Two assumptions here: The first is that once an airliner leaves the gate, no delays are caused by anything government does, from airport capacity limitations to air traffic control delays, when in fact the entire process is government controlled. The second assumption is; how does a passenger rely on the airlines to get them anywhere when under threats of fines, the airlines cancel every flight that might come close to being delayed three or more hours. The question becomes how long can the airline industry survive if it cannot provide reliable, safe and on time transportation, not because it’s not trying, but because the US Government fined the airlines into oblivion for things that are beyond their control as a business, like severe weather or government imposed system capacity limitations.

There are good answers to our airport capacity, airline profitability and air traffic control system limitations and you can read a white paper I published sometime ago about these issues here.

This Federal Regulation is another example of not just Congressional Stupidity, but more proof of the laws of unintended consequences. To make matters worse, it adds more credibility to my recent article about the Obama Administration throwing the airline unions under the bus.

Do Congress and our Administration really want the airline industry to fail? If they do, then they should just stay on the current flight plan.