JustAWS: You might look up some of Kahn's nebulous arguements for deregulation. To me, they sounded quite abstract and deceptive.
Ignition,
Curious, because I cannot believe it if you are, but
are you in favour of re-regulation?
There seems to be this lingering sentiment in the US that the success of de-regulation was going to be judged by how well it maintained the status quo!
I don't believe the country ever fully embraced de-regulation (although I don't claim to fully understand all the issues), whereupon now, almost 30 years later, when the financial crisis is ostensibly worse than it ever was, people still want to lay the blame at the foot of Mr Kahn and co. rather than the chronic financial mis-management that has ensued since then.
derekl,
I think you are being generous to Ch 11 here, but my take is that, when companies take opportunistic advantage of imminent change in legislation to file for Ch 11, an abuse of the system is being perpetrated. I accept it was likely to happen anyway but thats not the point.
The reason this one is difficult for pilots to swallow is that the economic issues and social issues are confused.
Lets assume that airline (ex)+employees were not going to take a big hit in order to solve the problem of how the bath-tub emptied and no-one noticed (impossible but run with it...).
The answer is obvious. The networks must shrink. The customer will loose out but he is going to loose out anyway.
But it is because, (ex)+employees
are going to take a huge hit, that (and quite rightly so) the issue becomes complicated because with business activity comes social responsibility.
What I can't figure out is how those MBA's could sit there with the books in front of them everyday and watch those pension deficits mount. How can you not notice a number with 6, 7, 8 zeros after it? Even if you did, why didn't you do something about it? If pensions
are capitalised on the BS in the US, the crime is even more heinous.
But you have to say some are still succeeding inspite of the economic climate whereupon you arrive at your own conclusions about whether the de-regulation paradigm is valid. It bothers me that some see the fact that some airlines are hedged (for instance) as having an unfair advantage. Thats bulls**t. All the information was out there for everyone to take advantage of - your/my management didn't, you/I pay the cost.
Ryanair are hedged at $57/barrel for next year I believe and everyone laughed when they bought. Now who is laughing. Plus a boat-load of sale-leaseback transactions to carry them through the lean years ahead...
Opportunistic perhaps?
If you wanted to go into business though, would you want MOL as your wingman?
We will see how WW @ BA stacks up against him soon no doubt.