Originally Posted by
seamonster
Come on guys. You have to be kidding me to think that government could help the airlines. Look at Allitalia and the roller coaster that airline is to the country. That airline does not make money, it cannot make money but the government carries it along. Just what we need in the US. If you folks out there want a socialist nation than move to France and see your job move to another EU country that does it better. Move to Sweden and give the government 55% of your check to support the 150,000 imigrents that give nothing to the system but love to take. I have family in Sweden, this is not second hand info.
It may not be second hand info, but your facts are wrong. Alitalia is a state run airline. There has never been a state run airline in the US (except maybe Air America, but that doesn't count) and no one here has promoted that concept; the concept here was to return to some modified form of regulation to dampen out the cycles within the industry.
Anyone who looks will see the industry has followed a ten year boom and bust cycle since deregulation that is used by managements to file bankruptcy, break contracts, raid pensions, issue junk debt instruments, sign lousy lease deals for facilities and equipment, make money, bust and repeat. The industry constants since then have been breaking contracts as soon as labor begins to recoup the previous concessions, selling seats for less than cost and increasing capacity which leads to a repeat of demands for concessions because the company can't pay the bills with the insufficient fares they charge and once again they go back and demand that labor give back that which they just got back from the last round of lunacy.
With due respect, I don't know what your level of industry experience is, but the "free market" theories you espouse have a historical track record of failure in this business. Not just my opinion, but that of a guy by the name of Dr. Alfred P. Kahn...the father of airline deregulation.
And just in the off chance he's wrong, look around. Deregulating the financial industry was a real stroke of genius. From the same folks who wanted to privatize Social Security...Wonder where all those folks would be if that had happened. Do the words penniless and hopeless mean anything?