Originally Posted by
tallpilot
You aren't wrong but just about every other professional career gets subsidies of one sort of another. Pilots without military benefits are basically on their own.
Do I personally love government meddling in the economy and the unintended consequences it creates? No. But Kirby is right to lobby for what other industries get.
To the point a few posts ago: There are two shortages right now. One is the current shortage of pilots willing to work for the wages offered. The other is the future shortage if flight school enrollments stay where they are.
Kirby is more concerned with the later since he can stripe mine the regionals to solve the former. He appears quite prepared to do that and to allow UAX to shrink.
It will be very interesting to see when the market finally finds some equilibrium.
IMO the covid subsidies were a rare example of where the .gov SHOULD meddle in the economy... the long-term economic consequences of allowing the airlines to liquidate and/or shrink by 50% would have been frankly catastrophic. It would have taken several years to rebuild capacity and even then the gov would probably have had to help.
Fair to other sectors? No. But bartenders, baristas and small business are a lot easier and quicker to recover than airlines.