Thanks to the employees that had to go against their supervisors to report these inconvient truths.  Mostly, whistleblowers are treated shamefully.  They are treated like the bad guys while the problems that they reveal continue to plague us, while their superiors continue to reap bonuses and profits.

The airlines are not alone in their failures to adhere to the FAA’s safety standards.  What about the managers at the FAA who failed to enforce safety rules, not just the immediate managers but the ones up the line that applied pressure on behalf of the airlines.  They should be removed from their positions of authority for their failures of trust.

Who are the watchdogs of the FAA??  What were their failures??

They ensured their next campaign contribution from AIPAC with that vote.  The corporate media will love them too.

These Incs either Hide behind old Gov’t agency Names or they make up their own (‘Federal Reserve’- the Grand daddy of ‘independent Contractors)
Why do we pay these agencies- let’s cut out the middle man (facade) and get right to those who have been actually providing the ‘services’ . FAA- run by Airlines, FCC run by Corp Media, Health & Human services- Insurance & Pharm’s) Dept of Defense- Lockheed, Blackwater…
Thsi is NOT Teh Free market - it is Not Capitalism, It’s Corporationism. When discussing ‘god damn America’ it’s the Incs. When discussing AmericaNs it’s US.9/11 was an attack on America Inc, nothing else. It is those INCs who placed Our citizens in Harms way- Human Shields. they knew We would mistakenly believe WE had been attacked Not place the responsiblity on the Inc’s whos Unethical Global Business Practices which insited these acts.Jus tthink aobut the targets, they were after Them Not US.

May…you’ve said it SOOOO well!!

And, you’ve hit the bulls-eye on every single point.

And yes, it IS a nightmare, but you ARE awake. It’s everybody else that’s asleep, or sleepwalking in it, too stupid to know that they are in a nightmare.

For some, they’ll just never wake up, since we’re on the falling side of the precipice at this point.

And, they STILL DON’T GET IT!!!

You couldn’t have said it better DennisD, and neither could I.

Well, I could add what used to be the icing on top of the corporate logo…

They only make the top dollar when the airplanes are in the air, AND…when there is an ass in every seat, and a smile at every window.

They don’t much give a damn about the smiles any more, but they DO still want an ass in every seat, and if they could sell hand straps for hanging from the overhead bins, they’d do that as well.

Remember, seats on any given flight have ZERO shelf-life. They can’t be returned to inventory, and empty seats upon departure are racked up as ‘spoilage’.

That’s why this alleged ‘demand’ for maintanence that allegedly cancelled hundreds of flights was one damn good way, (the best in fact) to save a whole bunch of money. All of the people could be rerouted on other airplanes, that surely DID leave with an ass in every seat, and they saved tremendous costs in fuel and labor and all the rest, on the ones that did NOT operate, since they were allegedly being ‘checked’.

Now that’s one damn good way to fix the revenue per passerger mile numbers at the end of a bad month.

^ America, the infrastructure cannot be maintained.  Consequently, the country is falling apart.  The media concentrates on the “MONEY”, but like most distractions, this isn’t what’s really going on.  The cost of Iraq is far more than the dollars borrowed and spent; it goes literally to the heart of this country and everything that is being squandered in the name of the global war against terrorism.  The rich don’t have to worry because they can cover the cost of anything that may befall them:  So this is theft on the grandest scale of all; the very theft of the greatest prize in the world……America’s vast wealth.  Our wealth; so, what are you going to do about it?

If that is true, (and I’m in agreement) shouldn’t the airline execs be in the next cell?

The title is misleading. The same thing that happened to these folks for ‘blowing the whistle’ is the same fate that awaits any other member of the FAA OR any given individual airline employee, who chooses to ‘blow the whistle’ on anything of any relevance to aviation safety.

It’s been that way for years, and one can never tell who ‘the enemy’ is, in choosing to ‘blow the whistle’.

For now, it’s Southwest in the hotseat, since the names of the other airlines, (long guilty of the same) have not been released.

I should also add that the ‘timing’ of these massive groundings of various portions of airline fleets, ostensibly for repair and maintenance checks, is suspect.

In addition to Southwest, Northwest, American, and United Airlines have also done major flight cancellations in recent days, in order to supposedly meet this FAA mandate. Personally, I don’t believe that the mandate required that they accomplish all of these checks in such a narrow window, when they could have been accomplished over a period of time, within the scheduled maintenance already allocated.

However, it’s been noted that in the midst of these numerous cancellations the airlines WERE able to accommodate 97% of the passengers affected by rerouting them on other flights, (on the SAME airline) and/or other carriers.

The result means that the cancellation of literally hundreds of flights saved these airlines MILLIONS of dollars in operating costs, (fuel, labor, etc) and they were still able to collect the revenue.

Still, the whistle blowers are probably standing in the foodstamp line.