Protest Draws 1,300 Southwest Pilots

Ranks of uniformed Southwest Airlines pilots gathered beneath the scorching Texas sun at Dallas Love Field to picket in protest of their treatment by the airline. The show of solidarity drew approximately 1,300 pilots, many of whom carried signs blaming Southwest management for delays and cancellations that have upset passengers. Southwest's operation: From first to worse, one sign read, while another, more prosaic banner posited, Our passengers and pilots deserve better.

“There Is A Growing Trend Of Scapegoating Pilots For An Airline’S Inability To Attract And Retain Staff..."

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from Capt. Joe DePete, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA), and Capt. Ryan Muller, chair of ALPA’s Spirit Airlines pilot group, ALPA called on DHS to help prevent U.S. airlines from misusing the “specialty occupation” visa designation that undercuts airline pilot jobs.

My God, It’s Full of …

A legal storm is brewing in California—a state that has doggedly pursued and deservedly earned a reputation for breathtaking short-sightedness. High taxes, endless regulations, massive litigation, rising crime, increasing homelessness, and a political prioritization of social and environmental policies over practical business solutions have precipitated an exodus of small and large companies from the Golden State. California’s latest target is the airline industry. The state seeks to require its onerous employee meal-and-rest-break laws to apply to all California flight attendants—even if their routes are entirely outside of California.

Waypoints and ETAs for the Sunset Bound

The Airline Industry is in a deplorable state. Thousands of flights have been and continue to be cancelled. Innumerable travelers remain stranded in airports throughout the world. To a frightening and incontrovertible degree, Part 121 operations have degenerated into a wilderness of outrage, apologetics, labor disputes, and pilot shortages. How did it happen, and why?

Going Once, Going Twice …

McMinnville, Oregon—famed UFO hotbed and Spruce Goose roost—will host a unique foreclosure auction. The property in question is neither a house, nor an automobile, nor even a collection of Richard Nixon campaign buttons; rather it’s a derelict Boeing 747 that’s been parked in front of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum for eight years. McMinnville Properties, an outfit controlled by wine entrepreneur Bill Stoller—who also owns the museum—seeks to acquire the airplane. The company filed suit last October against the 747’s owner, a Kansas City aircraft parts and leasing operation called Jet Midwest, which bought the aircraft in 2014 after Evergreen International Aviation filed bankruptcy.

Row Over Expelled Diplomats Intensifies

The American side continues to systematically destroy bilateral relations that are already in a lamentable state.” So states Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry. In February, the United States expelled 12 diplomats from Russia’s New York-based mission to the UN, accusing the staff of engaging in espionage activities. Moscow condemned the move as hostile and—in the wake of the Biden administration’s subsequent refusal to allow a Russian aircraft to pick up the expelled diplomats and their families and return them to Russia—threatened counter-measures, possibly asymmetrical ones.