Airlines Face Strike Threats and Potential of Congressional Action
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: But strike threats aren't the only thing plaguing air travel. Joining us now from Washington is the spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents, Mike Pingrey. Mike, we hope that your organization isn't planning any strike votes soon.</s>MIKE PINGREY, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF TRAVEL AGENTS: We aren't authorized to strike.</s>O'BRIEN: That's a good thing. Good morning to you. It's kind of hard to sort all this out and I do know that, you know, in the airline industry, there's a long history of bargaining well past deadlines for strikes. How -- you know, which airlines should we be watching? Which one is going to become a real strike do you think?</s>PINGREY: The ones that you have to watch are the big three. That's United, American and Delta. Those three airlines, between the three of them, control about 65 percent of Americans' air travel. So, if any one of them goes on strike, we're in for a really terrible time.</s>O'BRIEN: And what do you rate the chances right now as you watch it closely?</s>PINGREY: You know, I'm fairly optimistic, and I'm optimistic not because I don't think these people will want the strike, but because I think the president is going to have to step in. He's going to realize the danger of this and stop it.</s>O'BRIEN: And I guess, you know, it was a few years that American pilots were on the cusp of a strike, or actually did go one strike, if I recall, and the president stopped that strike.</s>PINGREY: Absolutely, and it is a necessity. What we've got with three major airlines, an oligopoly, controlling the airways, we can't allow any one of them to shit down. It's critical to our national interests.</s>O'BRIEN: Well, what happened? Deregulation now is what, getting close to 30 years old, isn't it, or 25, anyhow and the idea was to get away from having, you know, a few number of players? For a while, there was quite a few players. What's going on?</s>PINGREY: Yes, unfortunately, there was a lot of encouragement for new start ups and new airlines and things like this but what we've seen over the last several years has been a lot of mergers and acquisitions. The big get bigger and the small get eaten.</s>O'BRIEN: Is this inviting Congress to do something and if so, do you think that's a bad idea or what do you suspect they might do?</s>PINGREY: Normally, I would stray from the idea of congressional intervention. However, I think in the case of the airlines today, it's an absolute necessity. There's a bill pending in Congress called the Air Traveler's Bill of Rights that I think must be passed. What we've seen over the past three or four years is a great reduction in service to the American public and great increases in profits to the major airlines.</s>O'BRIEN: Would you advocate full scale regulation as we had in the '60s and '70s?</s>PINGREY: I would be very temperate about what I would require. No, I don't think I'd go back that far, but I'd certainly make sure that the airlines are responsive to the air travelers' needs.</s>O'BRIEN: So, what would you suggest then, when you say make then responsive?</s>PINGREY: Well, there's a couple of issues. One is the airlines said about a year ago that they would notify people when there were cancellations and delays and give them timely notification. That just hasn't been accomplished. Maybe they've made an effort, but it's not much of an effort. It's pretty half-hearted The other thing is they give the traveling public no option on where to buy their tickets. They're trying to push everybody onto their Internet sites to buy their tickets from them there saying, well, you'll get a reduced rate here. It's just not reasonable or fair to the American traveling public not to have the options, not to have the abilities, not to know what's going on with their canceled flights. And then the airlines will turn and say, oh, air rage, it's caused by the passengers.</s>O'BRIEN: You know, Mr. Pingrey, I'm not an expert on the airline industry. I have never worked for an airline, but you know, as a lay person and as a frequent traveler, I can tell you, this seems to be no way to run an airline. Why can't they get it straight?</s>PINGREY: I really am not certain. I think that the bean counters have taken over control of the companies and their entire focus is on short-term profits and not on long-term service and I think that's a horrible position to be in for all the airlines.</s>O'BRIEN: Well, there's always trouble when the bean counters rule, and you can take it from me. Mike Pingrey, thanks so much for being with us on CNN SUNDAY MORNING and we'll check in with you later as this all progresses, if you don't mine that is?</s>PINGREY: I'll certainly -- any time, Miles.</s>O'BRIEN: Take care.