Not to mention Kent State.

Respectfully withdrawn. Apologies to those I offended

[This message has been edited by SRQ Guy (edited 03-12-2001).]

Have you noticed that the French never refer to Charles de Gaulle as that , even though the airport has been called that even from its opening. They all (french TV news included) as Roissy. Roissy-en-Fance was the name of the village that used to stand where the airport exists today. Whether that is political or that it rolls off the tongue better, I do not know

If you make my smart retorts incomprehensible then I have to erase them too,

[This message has been edited by RichG (edited 03-12-2001).]

Don't think that use of Roissy is politically motivated. There might be a tendency to prefer geographical names in France. Other examples are Marseille-Provence, still refered to by locals as Marignane and I suspect it will be quite some time before the Lyonnais refer to Lyon-St-Exupery rather than Satolas.

SRQ: Please remeber the next time you fly that those lowly union guys are working to keep you alive and safe.

I would wager that these ATC people are responsible for more lives and equipment than just about any other job out there.

respectfully withdrawn

[This message has been edited by SRQ Guy (edited 03-12-2001).]

Uh oh! I see a potentially long thread in the makin'!

In a similar vein...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum94/HTML/004121.html

The main issue with labor and the airlines can be traced back to the early 90's when the airlines were loosing lots of money. In one year most airlines lost more money than they made in the past 50 plus years!!!!

In order to remain solvent, labor agreeded to major wage/work rules cuts--and to forgore raises. The expectation was that when the airlines returned to profitabiltiy, they would be paid back for their sacrafices.

The airlines turned the corner in 1995 and since 1997 have been making large profits. The unions have been negotiating since 1996 to regain what they lost and to share in some of the profits. The airlines stalled as long as they could and now are very worried with the downturn in the US economy (US business bookings are way off this year) they can't afford the wage demands being asked for by labor. The other complicating factor is United's generous package they gave to their pilots last year. All other unions are saying if United can afford this for their pilots, we should get the same percentage increase in our wages.

If the airlines were serious about avoiding future labor problems, they should study Southwest and adopt their profit sharring contracts it has with its employees.

My brother Tango is right on the money (pun intended), except that I would back up the beginning of serious problems to Frank Lorenzo and Eastern Airlines. Lorenzo kept going back to the pilots to bail the airline out of financial trouble while he and his cronies were the only people making money on a money-losing operation. It still boggles my mind that he got away with selling Eastern's share of the reservation system ("System One", as I recall) to related parties (i.e. related to him) for about a third of its real market value, just to suck Eastern as dry as possible.

[This message has been edited by RichG (edited 03-13-2001).]