Tell It To Al

When a major airline files bankruptcy, everybody is supposed to get a haircut: Employees, creditors, investors, pensioners, unions, and maybe even the customers. But not the CEO.

Last week, a federal judge rejected a $20 million payout for American Airlines CEO Tom Horton, who oversaw the carrier’s Chapter 11 reorganization and its deal to merge with U.S. Airways. The judge said the amount exceeds guidelines set by Congress. But also said there’s nothing to stop the new, reorganized company from making the payout.

No doubt Mr. Horton deserves to be compensated for his work, but in a company that’s trying to shed its debts and get it’s cost structure in line with reality, how much is too much?

Click here to watch me talk about this and other topics in the news with Will Ripley of Denver’s NBC Affiliate, 9News.

Delta Air Lines raises a good question: Why does the U.S. run a government agency that finances jet liners for its foreign competitors?

Delta on Wednesday filed a lawsuit trying to force the Export-Import Bank to stop subsidizing the competition. Last year, more than 80% of the bank’s loans went to finance purchases of Boeing jets, a testament to the lobbying power of the aircraft maker.

Delta argues this financing puts its competitors in an advantaged position. “These foreign airlines will recoup their investment in their new aircraft faster or reduce ticket prices on competing routes without adversely impacting their relative rate of return on those investments,” Delta said in the filing.

It nothing else, it represents the epitome of corporate welfare and the government’s picking of winners and losers.

Click here to read more from Reuters.

An economics professor is making headlines this week after publishing a controversial paper suggesting that airlines charge people by the pound.

Click here to read more on that from Reuters.

From my vantage point, economists are the slowest thinkers in the world. I proposed that airlines charge people by the pound in 2006 after sitting next to a very large man on a trip home from Maui. Click here to read that column in the Denver Post.

(A special thanks to Denver Post Business Editor Kristi Arellano for first pointing this out in a Tweet. I had almost given up on this idea.)

TOUCHED BY AN AGENT

The Transportation Security Administration has decided to allow small knives, mini-baseball bats, hockey sticks and other potential weapons it has banned since 9/11.

It will still be looking for your Head & Shoulders shampoo. And don’t even think about smuggling bottled water onto a plane.

The TSA says the move will give it more time to look for more important things, like bombs. But the announcement also seems a tacit admission that the TSA has been wasting our time and money for the past several years on things it now says don’t matter.

Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.

Flight attendants and air marshals, who may have to do battle at 30,000 feet, aren’t exactly happy with the decision. Neither is Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson, who wrote at letter to TSA chief John Pistole protesting the move. Click here to read more about that.
 

American Airlines is run just like America, subsidized by government, and of course, the bankruptcy process.

The parallels between the nation and its namesake airline are endless.

Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

Let’s see, Americans are getting fatter, but airlines are making their seats thinner.

If you’re a ”customer of size” or you are sitting next to a “customer of size,” you know that this is just nuts. Click here to read more about the seat size changes, and then go on a diet or get one of those “Honey, I shrunk the kids,” machines.

Almost everything about commercial aviation is nuts these days, from the pilots and crew to the passengers. And no airline can truly guarantee a “nut-free” flight from people allergic to them.

Click here to read my column on Marketwatch. And click here to read a column I wrote in 2006 about getting stuck on a flight from Hawaii next to a guy whose mass was just rolling into my seat.

Alaska Airlines says it will no longer hand out prayer cards on its flights.

The inspirational cards used to come with meals, but when the meals stopped, the customers were left with only the cards, citing Psalms such as, “Give thanks to the Lord.”

Alaska says it’s getting rid of the cards because religion is personal.  Click here to read the details from the Associated Press.

I can’t believe it’s been handing them out this long. I, for one, would have second thoughts about flying on an airline that suggests I better pray.

Bouncing around in a turbulent sky is bound to inspire prayer as it is.  What else do we have to pray for besides a safe landing? Our luggage back? An on-time arrival? A lavatory that doesn’t stink up the entire cabin?

What do you pray for when you’re up in the air?

Traveling tonight, I marvel at getting through the TSA lines with no nudie X-ray photo, no intimate body massage from a uniformed government thug, and no real  hassle.

I have a bit of a wait ahead of me, so to celebrate my relatively easy night, I order a steak at The Denver Chop House inside Terminal A a the Denver International Airport.

This was a big mistake. All they would give me to cut it was a plastic knife.

Have you ever tried to eat a New York Strip with a plastic knife? I tell you, the terrorists  have won. I would like he TSA to refund the $32 I spent on this steak.

“It cuts better than you would think,” the waitress tells me when I thoughtlessly ask for a real knife, forgetting that I was in a concentration camp for innocent, American travelers.

Yes, and so did a few simple box cutters on 9/11, I remark.

The waitress also noted that while the knife was plastic, the fork was the real thing. If a terrorist can take down a plane with a bottle of water, just think what he could do with a real, metal fork.  (Note to TSA:  Several times while you groped my wife after she refused your unnecessary doses of radiation, your screeners completely overlooked bottles of water in her bags. You are not even good at the meaningless work you’ve been assigned.)

Oh, and the knife I got from the Chop House, while plastic,  was chrome. It sure looked like the real thing. And if you can rob a bank with a fake gun …

Just another reason why the TSA will ultimately be abolished. It’s just wasting government money.

It’s painful watching Denver’s hometown airline churn through one restructuring and cutback after the next. I talk about with Matt Flener of Denver’s NBC affiliate, 9News.  Click here if video above doesn’t load.

I am swimming in emails and comments today from readers – most of whom are angered, and even terrified, by the TSA’s enhanced security procedures.

Travelers selected for the TSA’s new imaging machines have a choice.

They can be exposed to a high-tech strip search, which includes a naked photo and a dose of radiation with debateable health effects. Or they can be patted-down everywhere, including groin and breasts.

Whatever happened to the Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures?

Lawsuits are flying. And there’s an National Opt-Out-Day slated for Nov. 24. Organizers are asking travelers to opt out of the scanner on that day and submit to a hand search. If everyone requested a hand search, the TSA would sure be busy, and the airport operations could come to a crawl.

Has the TSA gone too far? Or will anything go in the name of protecting us from terrorists?

Also, this just in. Another protest is being organized for Dec. 1 that aims to shut down airports with protesters. Check out shutdowntheairports.com.