American Airlines and the pilots union try to ban a competitor
Timothy P. Carney
Video Embed
When Big Business and Big Labor team up to demand Big Government, you know that the regular guy is getting ripped off.
American Airlines has joined forces with the Air Line Pilots Association in a lobbying effort to quash a lower-cost competitor.
BIDEN’S LAND GRAB HURTS WORKING FAMILIES
SkyWest is a small air carrier that operates flights for some of the big airlines. They want to branch into a new field: operating regularly scheduled flights on small planes from private terminals.
JSX Air is one company that already offers this product. Legally known as a “public charter” or “scheduled charter” operator, JSX flies small planes out of private terminals, but at fares far closer to commercial coach than to private air travel.
For starters, it’s simply another option, which may fly at more convenient times than the bigger carriers or the major discount carriers. Some of these flights originate from smaller airports that may be closer to residential neighborhoods.
The main advantage is a more reasonable boarding process — particularly, no TSA security theater. You walk through a metal detector and get your bag swabbed for explosives, and that’s about it. This doesn’t merely save time, hassle, and your dignity, it also allows you to bring on your own snacks, drinks, and jars of local marmalade — all of which our Transportation Security Agency has deemed too dangerous to fly.
On JSX, there are no overhead bins and one seat per side per row, which eliminates most of the boarding delays.
In sum, you can get to the terminal a few minutes before boarding.
The massive legacy airlines hate this, because it is a competitor who is more much pleasant to fly, operating at about the same costs. Thus the airlines and their pilot union are trying to get Uncle Sam to clamp down on public charters.
The Associated Press reports on Sky West’s petition to operate its own public charter flights:
“The Utah-based company asked the U.S. Transportation Department for permission to operate new flights under less-restrictive charter-airline rules if it limits planes to 30 seats.”
The unions have hired revolving-door former congressman Peter DeFazio as their lobbyist, opposing this license. Their argument includes attacking the business model already used by JSX.
Their main argument is that SkyWest and JSX would be allowed to use veteran pilots who are over 65 — which is the mandatory retirement age for pilots of larger aircraft. Also, pilots who don’t yet have 1,500 flying time are allowed to captain smaller planes but not large planes, and so SkyWest could use these slightly greener pilots, too.
The pilots and the airlines will make safety arguments against the expansion of public charters, but these fall short.
Already rich people can fly without TSA screening out of private terminals, and already rich people can charter jets with 66-year-old pilots or captains with only 10,000 miles. So the big airlines’ argument amounts to: This is safe enough for rich people, but not for our potential customers.
The anti-SkyWest and anti-JSX campaign is really about using the government to outlaw competition.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Travel writer Gary Leff tears into American Airlines for this: “American Airlines is part of a government-granted and subsidized cartel given — for free — exclusive rights to fly in and out of the nation’s busiest airports. They have slots at New York JFK and LaGuardia, and the majority of slots at close-in Washington National. Other airlines are not permitted to simply add flights and compete against them.”
Competition is a bit of a drag for the big guys. What could be better than getting the government to ban it?