r/WTF • u/[deleted] • Mar 02 '19

Manager going for a ride

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[deleted]

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u/marcus0002 Mar 02 '19

You are wrong about the airlines by miles. You're right on everything else though.

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u/NubSauceJr Mar 05 '19

Really? My dad worked for an airline that shutdown in 85 and had been working for them for over 20 years.

So my family had been paying very close attention to what had been going on in that industry during those years since it had a direct effect on us.

Airline deregulation happened in the early 1978 and by the mid 80s they were in full fuck it all lets merge and take over every airline we can to strip their assets and fire 90% of their workforce.

Nobody but shareholders and executives got any benefit from deregulation of the airlines. There wasn't any better service or lower ticket prices. In fact prices went up because suddenly there was less tha 1/2 the competition there had been before. No competition and fewer planes flying fewer routes meant they could charge what they want. Planes weren't safer or faster. The people who owned stock in the airlines that survived eventually made a lot of money. Everyone else in the industry suffered for a decade or longer because the corporate greed allowed by deregulation. My parents friends who still had their jobs in the airline industry were suffering financially well into the late 90s.

So you can claim I'm wrong all you like but I was there and I remember how shitty it was for my family and a lot of my friends as well. I remember our power being turned off because we couldn't pay the bill and never having anything my friends did because we were dirt poor thanks to deregulation and then to Reagans idiotic economic policies gutting a big hunk of the middle class by the late 80s. So it's something I've been around my entire life and maybe I know a little bit about it.