Originally Posted by
GrayAnderson
I think curbing rewards programs might be doable. The question is how to try and make it so it's mostly a question of "which airline do I pick for X travel?" versus "Should I fly vs driving/taking the train?"
I have always wondered why US airlines don't spin off their rewards programs, which is often done in other parts of the world. It would be interesting to see what would happen, but I don't think the government would require it as a condition of a bailout at this stage.
Originally Posted by
GrayAnderson
Back to the underlying issue, however, I think the case behind bailing out the non-ULCCs but not the ULCCs is that, aside from infamously bad corporate behavior (Ryanair's been rather a scofflaw in terms of EU261 compensation) I do think that making a case on bailing out carriers operating a transportation network and serving to facilitate business makes more sense, in terms of "bailout triage", than exclusively or highly leisure-oriented operations.
Why would you say that? Leisure tourism is a huge driver of the economy, and can be very important for communities just like the industries supported by business travel. If business routes are bailed out and leisure routes aren't, it would be yet another example of the government giving money to corporations (which pay for their employees' business travel) instead of individuals.
Bailouts always create a moral hazard, but the government should not be picking winners and losers. After the financial markets crashed, the big firms were bailed out while the smaller ones were left to go bankrupt. This led to the "too big to fail" mindset where large banks started taking more risks, knowing that they had a guaranteed lifeline. We don't want the same to happen to the airline industry because that would stifle competition.