[jimworcs]

You can't regulate all of that stuff. Requiring certain seat pitch, etc. That would never become a reality

Wrong: it is already regulated, for example the seat pitch at the exit rows and the speed of evacuating the plane in an emergency both limit the numbers of passengers an airline can squeeze into the tube. The debate is not whether is can be regulated, but what is reasonable.

the airlines do not create connections. They happen by default.

Wrong: The whole strategy of the legacy carriers in the US has been to create "fortress hubs" which depend on connecting traffic to make them viable. Without the connections the flights would not be viable, and the airlines specifically create schedules to facilitate these transfers. For someone who works in the airline industry, you show a surprising level of ignorance about how the hub system works.

Allowing foreign ownership of the airlines will cause what has happened in many other industries. It will allow foreign labor to come do American jobs

Wrong: Foreign ownership of an American company does not confer on that company any more rights to bring in foreign labour than an American company. The immigration laws apply to all companies, regardless of their ownership.

Just so you know, it is airline labor, not airline management, who has fought to prevent foreign ownership of the airlines

Wrong: Delta and Continental have both filed objections to the proposed tie up between BA and AA for example. United also objected to the liberalisation of the airways between Europe and the US.

And no, we cannot just go in and start moving people around. That would create a major mess at boarding

Wrong: Airlines regularly do this. For example, moving people away from the exit seats where the Nazi Attendant (sorry Flight Attendant) decides they do not meet the criteria, sometimes safety reasons (sometimes for utterly incomprehensible reasons). The point ButchCassidy was making was that this is a safety issue. Children under 16 need adult help in an emergency and this should be by a parent or responsible adult. For example, there are fairly frequent incidences of rapid decompression. In this situation, the FA's are unable to assist as they must also get O2, and the parent is expected to put on their own mask first and then attend to their child. What if the child is not with the parent? Do we just hope the stranger will be motivated to do the right thing? In an evacuation, a parent is likely to block egress looking for their child... this could be highly dangerous. The airlines should be regulated, and believe me, if the FAA said so, they would miraculously find a way to resolve the problem.

You do realize if the airlines were forced to do all of these things, it means fares are going to sky rocket, to cover the costs

Wrong: There are many airlines around the world, and airports, with significantly higher standards of customer service than the US and they are not all low wage economies. Many European countries and some Asian countries have signficantly higher standards of service. The minimum wage in many European countries is higher than in the US. Besides, in case you are in doubt. I am a customer who is willing to pay more. Fares should increase, the race to the bottom is dangerous and has gone to far.

You really need to work for an airlines to understand why some things are the way they are. It never made sense to me, until I started working for an airline, but now it all does.

It is sad that you have become so jaded to normal standards of service, that the US airlines pathetic levels of service now "make sense to you". Perhaps it is time to change industries and smell the coffee.

They can charge what they want, for what service they want, or don't want.

Yeah, the financial services industry was like that too right? The lack of regulation in that industry brought about a world wide recession and is a financial disaster that will take at least a decade to recover from. Allowing the airlines to go unregulated is also disastrous. Lets learn the lesson and do something before something terrible happens and safety is compromised.

I've sat on an airplane for 3 hours, on the tarmac. Oh well. I didn't find it THAT BIG of a deal. But that is just me.

Such low expectations.. are you sure you are in the right job?

I don't care

Oh yeah, you probably are!