WEEKLY ADDRESS: Taking Action to Spur Competition in the Airline Industry and Give Consumers the
Source: White House
Taking Action to Spur Competition in the Airline Industry and Give Consumers the Information They Need
In this week’s address, President Obama highlighted the actions his administration is taking to spur competition in the airline industry, protect consumers and arm them with the information they need to make informed decisions, following the President’s call to action in April.
Building on the progress we’ve made so far, this week’s actions include a proposed requirement for airlines to reimburse luggage fees when bags are delayed; requiring airlines to report on the probability that your luggage could be lost; providing protections for travelers with disabilities; and requiring additional transparency and fairness in online ticket platforms.
The President highlighted these steps as another example of how government can be a force for good – ensuring that everyday Americans get a fair shake in our economy and have a voice in the conversation. That’s what these actions are about – taking steps, big and small, to better the lives of everyday Americans.
Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/22/weekly-address-taking-action-spur-competition-airline-industry-and-give
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given that it isn't one of the "polarizing" subjects... but it is still important in terms of impact on Americans and it was good to get an update on what the administration has been doing with this particular industry. I particularly liked the refund requirement regulation for missing/late bags! 
Thanks for posting! 
of banks that are to big to fail, but with one caveat, they don't have a "stress test", they don't have "funds" to withstand the test.
They (airlines) were being taken over from the likes of Ichan and Lorenzo, using the pension funds to acquire the airlines, in the process of deregulation of industry then the attacking of the wages and benefits to make ticket prices affordable with competition, far from the truth, it was about Love Field and American Airlines and Southwest and the gate space.
Then in the name of competition for deregulation such firms such as TWA and Continental / Eastern, Pan Am, Western, Peoples Express, Frontier, were going head to head with route structure against route structure and the further cutting of the competition and allowing consolidation under the disguise competition, for lower fares.
While at the same time and later using the business model incorporated from Ryan and Spirit, that the ticket price for the fuel and labor wasn't enough for a profit, but a fee was added on the food and the luggage to make a profit, to hell with the fact that everyone getting on the plane for weight and balance was at one time 170 lbs, and now up to 200 lbs plus the weight of the aircraft with fuel on board to make take-off requirements, with the weight of the bags being incorporated in that take off weight with fuel.
Then to have labor added as a cost factor while at the same time a landing and take off fee was being charged and raised, with the airline costs of operation, but that wasn't enough for Wall Street and the banks.
And while this was going on the right wing led republican Congress, was not using the money from the fee of take off and landing to up grade the radar or the facilities at the airports for expansion, but looking for ways to privatize the air traffic control system for a profit, and saying that the air traffic control system doesn't need to be under the umbrella of the FAA for oversight, using competition and others factors saying that it will be cheaper----------------no it will not , it is a shift of your and mine fees to give to a CEO at a for profit firm.
In some ways it reminds those of us on Medicare, and the public at large, we are being told that there are not enough funds in Medicare into the near future 2028 to keep it viable, and that the only way to save it, is to listen to the scam being perpetuated from the industry and the Congress, that it too is a failure and must be privatized to save it.
There was really no discussion on this subject matter (Medicare / Medicaid) to examine how to lower the costs to be affordable unless one was to look at Sanders vision of Medicare for All, that everyone pay a yearly fee, and monthly cost to give true competition to the health care scam industry, nope its being spread (Medicare) that it is a failure, with a thousand cuts and slices:
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/don't-touch-my-medicare/
Just like the plane ticket you buy is being driven on which zone you sit in, but you would think the service should be the same, like it use to be for all.
Nope, the public was sold the idea, but deregulation of the industry is not creating competition, it is making less, just like in Medicare.
But, now one zone pays for the other zone when boarding the plane, but does not get the same service.
Welcome to the new class of segregation, being perpetuated by the airlines, and the enabling of a 111 day working Congress for the 2016, making thousands per year $174,000 and $223,000 of taxpayer dollars, perpetuating the concept of the haves and the have not's on Medicare and also on that plane ticket being purchased:
lais·sez-faire
ˌlesā ˈfer/
noun
a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.
synonyms: noninterventionist, noninterventional, noninterfering; More
ECONOMICS
abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market.
"laissez-faire capitalism"
synonyms: free enterprise, free trade, nonintervention, free-market capitalism, market forces
"an agenda that embraces the concept of laissez-faire"
My morning rant.
