[427TJ]

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When we handed huge checks to the airlines after 9/11, we should have put a message on the back of the check stating that by endorsing the check the payee agrees to fly on schedule, be respectful to their passengers (who are their customers), maintain their equipment and deliver quality service. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.

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From management's point of view it is too an unresonable request. It costs money to do all that and the CEO, top managers, Wall Street banks, board of directors and major shareholders all DEMAND a return on investment. If management spends money on all that stuff then there's less money, maybe no money for executive bonuses and paybacks to those powerful interests that are invested in the company. There is INTENSE and RELENTLESS pressure on managment to keep costs as low as possible and that pressure is passed on to the traveling public through BS of the kind you experienced with your frequent flyer miles. If you want a cheap seat then you have to forego everything you mentioned. Oh, and don't expect airline employees to be all smiles after their several pay cuts and all the BS that is pushed down on them from management. (Sh!t flows downhill.) Imagine yourself being hammered RELENTLESSLY by your boss or management to work harder and harder and longer and longer for less and less money.

Senator McCain will win in November and he is a strong proponent of foreign ownership of U.S. airlines and he does not like airline pilots. Once a Chinese (or other nationality) investment group buys a major U.S. airline then the dismantling of the airline's labor unions will begin through forced strikes or just unilateral pay and benefit cuts. There are plenty of hungry workers, foreign AND domestic, ready to walk right in and take over. I was just in Oakland yesterday where the Kaiser Permanente nurses are on strike. The hotel is full of scab nurses flown in from all over the good old USA and they are going through training in the hotel conference center as we speak. (Hmm, security guards everywhere too.) I saw that as an example of what could easily happen to me, a unionized airline pilot. Foreign ownership is inevitable and someday you'll board your flight and there will be two nice foreign pilots who speak ragged English and foreign cabin crews who also struggle to communicate with you. Hey, it's the cost-effective way. The Holy Grail of airline managers is this equation: Cost = 0. In other words, 100% profit is the dream of every business owner, especially airlines with tight profit margins in good times and razor-thin proft margins, if any, these days. If they could just get employees to work for free then managers could go to sleep at night with big smiles on their faces. As labor falls out of favor with the American people we get closer and closer to Cost = 0.

Having said all that, skyrocketing fuel prices might kill off affordable flying before foreign owners can replace the unionized workers so my point could be moot.

For the record, my employer refused the post 9/11 government bail-out money.