Originally Posted by
DeadHead
I personally hate the lobbying notion as a whole, at the end of the day it comes down to who has the most amount of money to help "tip" the scale towards there sides' interests.
Looking at it from an outsider's perspective it is unfair to see that SWA needs to benefit in one way or another from almost any airline transaction that falls under antitrust matters as defined by the DOJ.
That being said, your right, sometimes your the windshield and sometimes your the bug. SWA is not the first, and by no means will they the last, to lobby heavily in Washington.
How come its illegal to bribe a government official unless the government official is a lawmaker? Just odd how that works and I'm being apolitical here. We're all lobbying in DC. Every airline in this discussion is.
But imo, if the government doesn't stand on principle then they'll get sued and I hope they get beat down. Right now DAL/LCC was told they cannot pick their competitors (Westjet, Airtran, Spirit, Jetblue), but a few months later UCAL picks SWA and the DOJ is fine with it and then says "we have no other competition issues with it."
If an airline wants to lobby that you've got to uphold the law or that a law is unfair, good for them. If they see an advantage and lobby on it, fine. I have no problem with SWA lobbying that no other airline should be allowed to fly passengers domestically but them. Fine with that, that's fair, free speech, and yes we'll bicker about it but its not SWA I have the primary issue with.
Its the government signing off on it and picking favorites, that's what I have a problem with. And anybody saying "that's fair! ha ha!" Well I have a problem there too.