When an industry is not investing capital into its infrastructure and its employees, meltdowns like the one Southwest experienced should be expected. These are inexcusable business practices that can only be defended in a context where profit is the only thing that matters. When an industry – and Southwest is just the most egregious example of an industry-wide problem – is this untethered from basic tenets of business, then it becomes enormously concerning, particularly when it’s one that depends on safety and quality control as much as the airline industry. In light of recent developments, a bipartisan group of attorneys general sent an eight-page letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in December 2022, urging Buttigieg to strengthen proposed rules in response to the growing problem of flight cancellations and significant delays. The recommendations in the letter include the following: • Requiring airlines to advertise and sell only flights that they have adequate personnel to fly and support, and to perform regular audits of airlines to ensure compliance and impose fines on airlines that do not comply; • Making it clear that USDOT will impose significant fines for cancellations and extended delays that are not weatherrelated or otherwise unavoidable; • Prohibiting airlines from canceling flights while upselling consumers more expensive alternative flights to the same destinations; • Requiring that credits and vouchers for future travel that are provided by airlines in the event of cancellation can be used easily without inappropriate limitations. The letter makes a number of excellent recommendations that may curb certain issues. Still, it’s a matter of the Department of Transportation actually enforcing them and having mechanisms to make airline companies truly reform. Americans are used to politicians making a lot of empty promises, warning of the consequences of corporate malfeasance without actually following through. This is the baseline expectation at this point, sadly. The Southwest holiday fiasco provided Americans with a real-time, concrete example of how cutting corners and short-term thinking can prove disastrous down the line. We rarely see this kind of lightning-bolt moment, where everything hits a crescendo so blatantly. It allows us to understand that when profit becomes so all-consuming that a company can’t even focus on the core elements of its business model, there needs to be serious reform before we reach even more severe crisis points. n 801.676.9722 | 855.747.4003 sales@thenewslinkgroup.com ARE YOU READY FORGROWTH? ADVERTISE IN THIS MAGAZINE TO ROCKET YOUR BUSINESS FORWARD. 20
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