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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   30077 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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This is possibly better saved for a small questions Sunday, but can someone explain why is the federal government up-in-arms over Southwest's latest boondoggle to me?

I understand why Southwest is getting hammered by popular opinion and in the press. I wasn't personally affected but I know a few people who were (8 hour delays, last-minute cancellations, etc) and I understand their frustration. I absolutely understand customers demanding refunds on cancelled flights or compensation for excessive delays. This, to me, is the market reacting and correcting itself. Southwest failed to deliver what it promise and it is reaping the economic and PR whirlwind.

What I don't understand are promises from both the Secretary of Transportation and POTUS to "hold the airlines accountable", which just seems weird to me. Is there a regulatory or national security reason for the Feds, much less POTUS, to be weighing in on this? Is it a straight-forward consumer protection issue or is it just the straight populist look-we-are-doing-something-to-people-you-currently-hate kind of politics that I am currently reading it as? What am I not seeing/understanding here?

The intertwinement of governments and airlines seems both necessary and permanent, given the needs for coordination across flight paths, airports, and security. As a result, the government can be expected to take a fairly active interest in determining what sorts of airline policies are acceptable, given that they're also providing airlines a sort of protection against standard competition. Unlike my local pizza shop inviting competition if they don't treat their customers well, it's pretty hard for anyone to say, "boy, this airline sucks at providing service from City A to City B, so I think I'll start my own airline".

I think your read of Biden and Buttigieg is correct in that they're offering little other than a sort of populist scolding of the unpopular thing, but I don't think that's particularly out of bounds for something that really does impact quite a few people.

For me, I'm going to just mentally file it away as Incident #91238 for why I'm a Delta loyalist. Every other American airline just absolutely sucks compared to Delta.

Airlines are a very competitive industry. That's why they constantly go bankrupt.

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