Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Airlines: Victims or Vultures?

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I say the airlines are vultures. And here is a simple example. The gentleman sitting next to me on the way home from Paris paid over $1700.00 for one way coach in desperation to get home. And he was one of about twenty. If they are going to be subsidized: 1. Regulated pricing for tickets, not the 500% up and down pricing game. 2. We have port authority police that manage other areas of transportation. 3. Treat (pay scale) and train employees properly in security positions. Did you know the x-ray girl gets $6.00/hr. and has approx 5 hrs. of training. As opposed to Europes $15.00/hr. and constant security training. With full benefits. 4. Sensitivity training. 5 And just plain training in general. Other than that there is always the law of supply and demand. Believe me where one drops the others will dive in for the kill.

I just watched CNN's "Moneyline," which featured this very topic. Congress is supposedly questioning the issue of airline executive compensation as part of the bailout deal at this moment. The CEOs were shown testifying and complaining that only 25% of their compensation derives from salary, while the rest is tied to performance issues. Poor babies, they only earn a measly $800,000 to $900,000 in annual salaries, and this year is going to be really rough for them without their multi-million dollar bonuses! And as usual in the CEO world, they claim this compensation is "necessary" to attract and retain the best executives. Well, I would imagine that the pilots, maintenance workers, baggage handlers, flight attendants and ticket counter workers found their compensation "necessary" as well, especially since more than 100,000 of them just lost their jobs. But let's think about the CEO's! They may not be able to afford the mortgages on their third homes this year! Now that's real hardship. Aren't you as taxpayers willing to give up future social security and Medicare so that airline execs can be fairly compensated??? Definitely VULTURES.

Again--others have said this: We all want airport security to be as good as it can be BUT--DOES anyone believe that anything that happened had anything to do with lax airport security? How? I don't see how anything that happened had anything to do with the question of the professionalism etc. of the luggage X-ray people. It seems to me that what happened happened because whoever did it planned it out very well. Having the Marine Corps at the X-ray machines wouldn't have prevented it; maybe having armed pros on board would have prevented this plan's being made & executed.

Yes, you're right. Nothing could have prevented the tragedy, so we should just stick with the same slipshod security we have. How about this? Why don't we now recognized that the USA is a major terrorist target and govern ourselves accordingly? That means airport security has to beefed up before people will feel comfortable to fly.

Both. But not just the airlines, many corporations found out in the '80's with Reagan's policies that they could get away with a lot. It is going to take a long time to move executives' salaries & benefits back into line and the don't-worry-about-the-company-what-can-I-get attitude.

Doesn't seem like anyone has mentioned the fact that if there the cockpits were secure, this would have had a much lower chance of success for these terrorists-- ie a better barrier than a thin door. I'm not saying this as a point of what SHOULD have been done, (ie pointing blame) but what definitely needs to be fixed and what hasn't been mentioned on this thread. There are other weapons besides knives that you can still get passed security if you really want a weapon. As far as the airlines are concerned, I have always thought that we were very, very lucky to be able to find relatively inexpensive, quick ways to travel around our country. Sometimes cheaper than I could drive, certainly if you consider the value of my time. I don't consider them VULTURES. They're businessmen perhaps those two words are synonyms to some of you.

I am sure this is a waste of time but: I did not express a criticism of the idea of tightening airport security, quite the contrary. I said, or meant,do you think this heppened because of laxness on the part of those employed to implement the security measures in effect at that time?

Pete, you seem very sure about your "facts". You said "As far as the airlines providing gate security, that's the airport authorities (usually city or county governments) that run that. Get your facts straight." Actually, at airports I'm familiar with, the airlines DO supply security through contractors. The NY Times says "About 100 private companies working on contract for the airlines employ about 18,000 lightly trained civilians to staff airport scanner checkpoints." (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/na...ner=ALTAVISTA1).

Amen! I've been trying to have this discussion with folks for a bit. How did these airlines get themselves into trouble within a day or two of this horrific situation?!? They literally rip off all passengers with their ridiculous pricing. Bad business practice for sure. Now they need tax payer dollars?!? We're getting screwed twice! I for one am off to see the Amtrak schedule. God bless you all and let's hope their will be some sort of return to normalcy no matter how small to all of our lives where ever you are.

It was on T.V. By the fifth day, or maybe it was even before that, the airlines said they lost how many millions or was it billion dollars?? since the attack. I heard a while ago some of the smaller airlines were going under anyway! But I don't mind paying a bit more if the money really is all going to protect us. I would think no more 10%-15 hike per person. If you count how many people will be flying on one plane that should be enough increase. I mean to upset anyone I may be wrong. IMHO. Alice

I just checked the Amtrak schedule. No trains to Europe!

Things happen. Airlines are vultures and should have to account for more but your fares will increase and then you will have something else to gripe about!

Our airlines are also asking for government money, though so far all the government will do is offer to meet extra insurance claims - there was a threat that all planes would be grounded this week. What Congress does is nothing to do with me, as I am not an American voter. However, what I do think is that if government money is going to airlines, it should be on condition that far fewer staff are laid off. I know this is nothing like the numbers that your airlines are laying off, but British Airways is laying off an extra 5000 staff since last week.

Are the pilots going to forgo the outrageous raises they just got?

Whatever pilots earn, it is certainly not an annual seven figure number, as is routine among the airline top dogs. And if it's too much for you to handle, Flying, why don't you be the first to board a plane that is piloted by multi-millionaire executives? Or better yet, the uneducated, unskilled labor that they prefer to hire? Yeah that's it. They should train some janitors behind a flight simulator, pay them minimum wage, and then the airlines will be saved!

The airlines, from the point of view of top management, were indeed vultures but they had to have the help of govt. policy to do it. From the point of view of those -- other than pilots -- who work for airlines, it's not just vulture-ism at the top level, it's bad planning. One bad idea was "Deregulation" that wasn't really deregulation -- it meant that airlines converged on a few supposedly profitable routes and concentrated all their competitive effort on those, abandoning a lot of other needed routes and areas. It also allowed the absolutely ridiculous fare structure that allows a seat on the same plane to go for anywhere from $180 to $2000. That's insanity in anyone's economic theory. Another bad idea was the hub system, guaranteeing congestion, overloaded runways at the same hours every day, difficulties for people trying to get from lesser-airport to lesser-airport via greater-airport, and even more complications in the fare structure. Another bad idea was having the FAA be pretty much staffed by airline corporate people largely responsive and/or answerable to the airlines, not the public (let alone national security.) Another bad idea was abandoning domestic rail service, guaranteeing an over-dependence on short-haul flights in heavily populated corridors -- with all the obvious problems of congestion, etc. As a side note, over 25 yrs., I've seen corporate salaries mushroom while starting salaries and starting qualifications of everyone at the "ground level" of reservations, baggage handling, etc. etc. has dipped substantially. We have proportionally fewer employees, with poorer education and ability, being paid less, in increasingly important jobs. So as a final note, I will add that over the last few decades we've gone from hoping for 4-5% profit margins to absolutely demanding 12-15% profit levels, increasing every year. Only a brand-new industry (oh, say, computer technology) can reasonably expect those levels, and only for a short period of time. Most industries and all economies will eventually crash and burn trying to maintain those levels.