This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I wrote the other day about being dislocated on Alaska Airlines and how my wife and I managed to make the best of bad situation.

At least I wasn’t booked on Southwest Airlines!

Just think of how bad it would have been.  We’d still be sitting in an airport waiting for a new flight days off, even as we spent time trying to find our luggage.

Here is the way the Wall Street Journal opined on the issue as editorial writers worried that, in the aftermath of struggles like Southwest (or is it really the aftermath?), the federal government was working to take over the airlines:

“The scheduling meltdown at Southwest Airlines is one for the business record books, and the carrier will pay a price for months or years in damaged reputation.  

“The only worse result for seething passengers would be to put Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in charge.

“Don’t laugh.  Buttigieg’s department said Monday it will investigate Southwest’s ‘unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays.’   It will also ‘take action’ to hold the carrier ‘accountable,’ as if the airline isn’t eager enough to make things right.”

To put it simply, Southwest cancelled more than 5,000 flights and is still trying to find its planes and crews!

And this from the Washington Post:

“No flights, no rental cars, no Christmas, but luggage everywhere. Everywhere!  Everywhere but where we need it.

“Luggage lined up in Dallas terminals like dwarf soldiers in a nightmare reveille.  Rings of luggage encircling empty carousels in Chicago, in a kind of artistic commentary on capitalism and modern itinerancy.  (Medium: thermoplastic polymer on wheels.)”

At times like these, the Post added, “our physical luggage becomes our emotional baggage.”

Congress is also doing what it does best, which is described best by one of my favorite short sayings:  It is setting out “to shoot the wounded.”

Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell announced a probe, while Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is using the mess to complain as usual about airline consolidation.  She wants Buttigieg to block a merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines.

Though the Christmas week brought huge lists of flight cancellations, most airlines are recovering.

However, Southwest’s problems roll on, with the carrier cutting 60 per cent of its schedule earlier this week. One problem seems to be outdated technology that failed to match crews to planes, as Southwest’s “point-to-point” network stranded aircraft across the U.S.

Back to the Wall Street Journal editorial:

“But Democrats care less about stranded passengers than they do about gaining more federal control over the airline industry.  Carriers are already required to refund when flights are canceled or ‘significantly changed.’

“Buttigieg proposed a new rule in August that requires airlines to provide refunds if flights are delayed more than three hours, increase the number of connections, land at a different airport, or use a downgraded’ type of aircraft.  The rule also would force airlines that received federal pandemic aid to provide credits if a passenger says he or she can’t fly because of Covid.”

The fact is airlines have struggled this year, but the government has contributed to the problem.

Covid lockdowns cost airlines business for two years (though, I add, that there might have been no useful alternative).  The federal aid that kept airlines afloat came with a mandate not to lay off or furlough employees. This caused airlines to offer retirement and buyout packages to preserve cash, leading to a pilot and crew shortage.

Washington receded from airline management in the 1970s, and the ensuing competition opened air travel to the masses.  Not sure whether this will continue – or be allowed to continue.

Again, the Journal:

“Politicians love to kick an industry when it’s down, but passengers can take their market revenge on Southwest without political help that will make air travel worse and more expensive.”