What Delta was
Monday June 18, 2007
So I finally turned my miserable air-travel interlude into a column. A reader writes in response: I am a retired Delta Air Lines pilot and I read your article "Stranded on Delta" in the Dallas morning News yesterday with a...
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Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Believe me, their shareholders are getting hosed too, so you can't say what they are doing is to their benefit.
Here's a valuable contrast: George Will on AMR.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2007/01/25/what_is_wrong_with_american_airlines
Key graf:
"American is the only one of the six "legacy" carriers (the others are United, Delta, Northwest, Continental, US Airways) that has never been in bankruptcy. Is it irresponsible for American not to use bankruptcy to lighten legacy costs -- shredding labor contracts and reducing obligations to retired employees?
Gerard Arpey, American's CEO, replies with a laconic "no." He considers it unseemly and shortsighted -- and unnecessary -- to seize short-term competitive advantages by reneging on labor contracts freely consented to, and to escape commitments to investors who lent you money in good faith. Furthermore, the damage to employee relations makes bankruptcy more costly than some companies realize when they use it as a routine management tool."
Giv'em hell. In so many respects the good ol' USA is fast becoming a third world country. Air travel is one of them. Almost all major US airlines deserve to go bankrupt. Let the industry collapse and start over. Maybe regulation wasn't so bad after all.
Hey, another article about how bad Delta is, from a conservative capitalist perspective!
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWY0OGMxMjEyZDk0N2Y5NzVhOTg4M2RjZjlkZTY0ZjI=
"As long as Congress and the FAA refuse to let foreign competitors operate in the U.S. market, domestic fliers can be assured of a deteriorating in-flight experience. Our politicians could at least allow a few foreign airlines to compete on some domestic routes, just to get a sample of how the domestic consumer will benefit from free-market air travel. But who am I kidding? If you want a top-flight experience in the clouds over Kansas you need a private jet, a luxury Mercedes in the sky.
But I dream."
My father's only employer was Pan American World Airways, the late and by some lamented Pan Am. His position for his last 20 years there was "ground supervisor", his job was to greet foreign VIPs in their native languages, and as a supervisor he was authorized to obtain additional resources at a moment's notice if the VIPs showed a need.
Granted, there's more than a bit of snobbery implicit in it, but I ask you: is there an airline that comes within miles of that standard any more?
I don't think so.
I like Delta.
They got me to and from Scotland back when Heathrow was shut down because of the we-mix-liquids-you-die crowd. Atlanta ROCKS as an airport. Especially if you've ever been through (gack) Heathrow.
Franklin,
If Airlines still charged (in real dollars) today what they did back then there would probably be that level of service, remember it wasn't that long ago that flying was something only the really wealthy did.
Eric,
That's an excellent point, but you should be aware that family travel started in the late 60s and steadily increased; that demand got coach class created. I remember a time when fully one-third of the seats on any plane were first class. The shift is there, over a long period to be sure, but it was still pretty dramatic.
I found this interesting:
"Previous leaders at Delta preached, "take care of the employees, they will take care of the customer, and the bottom line will take care of itself." The modern executives viewed employees as a financial liability that must be limited to improve the profit picture of the company. Experienced, "high cost" employees were ushered out and replaced with low-cost part time employees. Minimum staffing became the norm and customer service gave way to "competitive cost advantage.""
It's not just airlines. I went back to college as an adult, and I just found out today that the company I took a job with two years ago when I graduated, the one I took a sub-entry-level job with because they're the leaders in their field and I really wanted to work for them, is turning the next step up the ladder into a temp-to-hire position. That's right, if I want a chance to move up I have to give up my insurance and retirement plan, become a temporary employee, and hope to God that they like my work enough to hire me back again as a full-timer. How much loyalty do you think I now have to that company? How much extra work am I likely to do for its clients?
Screw 'em all, say I...
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