United Airlines CEO Says to Prepare for Another Dreadful Year of Travel

After an awful, terrible 2022, airline passengers can expect worse things in 2019. So says The CEO of United Airlines

The year 2022 was a stressful one for consumers who traveled by air. Carriers were left flat-footed by a surge of travel demand following the pandemic. Unable to adequately staff flights, they nevertheless continued to sell record-breaking numbers of tickets, resulting in more than one in five flights being delayed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics — the highest rate of delays since 2014.

…

Airlines will soon be hobbled by a lack of adequate staffing, something United’s Kirby alluded to. Analysts fear that political obstacles could impede market reform and modernization efforts in the future.

Are there labor shortages?

Perhaps firing people who refuse to get vaccinated is not a wise idea, especially since the unvaccinated aren’t a threat to anyone.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to force airline personnel to wear those useless masks for hours and hours on end. What employee would want to work in such conditions?

The airlines’ problems are a labor shortage, regulations (like retiring pilots too young at 65), outdated technology, and lousy infrastructure.

To me, the airline business is the canary in a coal mine about how competent the federal government manages things. A lack of demand and customers sure isn’t a problem. Flying is more popular than ever. Name another business that can’t keep up with demand, that is unable to get richer and richer through dynamic expansion to meet a growing market?

Airlines are too dependent upon the government. That’s the problem. They are controlled within an inch of each other’s lives. When bureaucracies and politics strangle you, you can’t make the necessary moves fast enough when the market shifts.

This has been a problem for decades. Over the past decades, airline travel was safe, reliable, convenient, affordable, and cost-effective.

Why? Why? Because the government was focusing on what a government should focus on: basics of governance.

But now everything’s changed. Airline travel has become a terrifying nightmare.

Why?

Because the federal government has lost sight of the basics. Today, it’s focused on utopian nonsense like appeasing the transsexual loons, arming Ukraine and apologizing to colonialism, slavery.

The reason I consider air travel to be the canary in the coal mine is that in order for air travel to flow smoothly, to work in a way that’s so efficient we take no notice of it, a countless number of moving pieces have to tick in perfect precision.

You’re talking about thousands of daily flights, personnel issues, weather issues… If the government takes its eye off the ball, the first canary that will hit the bottom of that cage is air travel.

Where does all of the money our government receives go? Our airports are so drab. Why aren’t there enough hubs? Why can’t we create enough expansion so the metal detector lines don’t look like the lines at Space Mountain? Why is technology so obsolete? Why isn’t the labor force large enough?

This should not be happening in a country like ours, which is dynamic and wealthy.

Before the war in Ukraine is over, they will probably have a gold-plated airport paid for by American taxpayers while we’re still shuffling through Dystopian Airlines with no shoes.

My days of flying are over. I have only flown two times in the past ten years. My wife and me bought a small camper.  We’ve been all over the country since. It’s wonderful. No lines. My wife is not pampered by bureaucrats. We can take the dogs, sleep in our own bed, eat our own food… It’s cheaper, and you see and experience things beyond a generic airport and generic airplanes staffed by surly stewardesses who get angry when you call them stewardesses.

Follow John Nolte Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.