After watching Delta Air Lines get fileted for claiming credit for parts of the Georgia voting bill before coming out against it after it had already passed, American Airlines tried to get ahead of things by coming out against Texas voting reform legislation though in the airline’s statement they never identified anything specific in the bill they had a problem with. American even offered their best ‘good people on both sides’ nod to “ballot integrity and security.”
Nonetheless they’ve drawn the wrath of Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick who reports that American’s head of government relations admitted neither he nor CEO Doug Parker had actually read the bill they oppose.
I am stunned that American Airlines would put out a statement saying ‘we are strongly opposed to this bill’ just minutes after their government relations representative called my office and admitted that neither he nor the American Airlines CEO had actually read the legislation.
Patrick should have ended there. Instead continues in his statement to yell at the Skyview 8 kids to get off his lawn.
By the way, this is the same American Airlines that in 2017 led the fight to try to force us to allow boys to play girls sports in Texas and take away their scholarships. They are probably still fighting for that today and it is likely they have not read Senate Bill 29 either.
American can hardly be faulted – they are surely less interested in the specifics of the bill than being on the right side of public opinion. People don’t read legislation before deciding whether they favor or oppose it. Members of Congress don’t even do that.
Notice that Ed Bastian cannot or does not specifically address the issues in the Georgia bill which he or Delta finds objectionable despite being asked to list those by ABC.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/GMA3/video/delta-air-lines-ceo-reacts-backlash-georgias-voting-76791137 (starts at 4.05)
to which ABC’s host says that some people think that Delta is just reacting under pressure.
Nancy Pelosi “You have to vote for it first, then you can read the bill”
No common sense anymore. American Airlines is a Dumpster Fire.
Clowns to the left of me!
Jokers to the right!
Here I am stuck in the middle with you.
LtGov Dan Patrick is also an infrequent reader of material relevant to the stuff that he pushes for and against. Coming from him, the criticism is amusing. Dan Patrick is notoriously ignorant — just see his stance on the election where Trump lost — and his ability to read properly was probably part of why his business collapsed into bankruptcy in the early 90s.
I have yet to see a cogent explanation as to why these airlines deem it necessary to publicly engage in partisan politics.
Why take a public position and tick off half of your customers?
Especially on a state-level issue that isn’t directly related to aviation?
What am I missing here?
American, shut up and fly. That’s your job. That’s the service you provide and that’s all.
Most lawmakers don’t read the bill either. Why is this news?
Is there any doubt what a voting bill passed in Texas would do? Obviously to make it more difficult for minorities/low income citizens to vote.
Wes – to be fair it’s not half the people they are pissing off it’s more like (a super vocal cancel culture via boycotting everything) 25%
Went to buy cold meds for my wife at a supermarket, they wanted photo Amphetamines I guess? After opening a money market account to pay bills via my long time bank, they wanted a new photo I.D. Oh. and two weeks ago I took delivery of a new car at a dealer where they asked for a photo I.D. as they couldn’t legally sell a car to someone without a valid photo driver’s license. Georgia voting? No problem! Y’all just show the f..k up!
There’s a lot people don’t understand about corporations. First, corporations don’t give a rats ass what politicians think. The only reason that they donate money to any politician is to gain access and sometimes it works in their favor when it comes to legislation and taxes. If you look closely, most corporations give money on both sides of the political isle in order to be in good graces with everyone.
Corporations do give a damn about publicity and in most cases they will always side with the lessor of two evils. In this case, there is absolutely no evidence of wide spread voter fraud. Yet, Republicans are rushing to pass election laws in order to make it easier for them to win next time around. We’ll have to wait to see if that works for them.
Corporations do care about consumer boycotts or the hint that they might be for anything that smacks of discrimination. But there’s is also one other thing that corporations care about and that is their employees, because almost every major corporation has anti discrimination clauses in their employee policies.
And then there’s sports. You have Republicans working to restrict voting for minorities and poor people on one side, and you have sports conglomerates that have a whole shit load of minorities that work and play for them. It’s not too hard to figure out what side the sports world is going to be on.
Politicians are going to scream loudly that they are being picked on. But they might have thought about that and the $100,000,000 plus that the State of Georgia is going to loose because of it before they started this fight. Right now, they had better be praying that their gamble pays off.
I have a small (very small) bit of empathy for these corporations who are under constant attack from the social justice mobs.
It’s long past time to grow a spine, realize these mobs do not represent the majority of society, and that corporations need to stay the hell out of this stuff. What is wrong with saying for example we are an airline. We transport people and cargo. These are complex issues with a large diversity of opinion, that is best left to the citizens to resolve via our democratic processes.
Until they stand up to the manufactured outrage on social media, they are going to continue to get pushed around like sissy’s, by people who largely have little to contribute to the good of society in the first place.
@Robert,
Georgia, Texas and a number of other largely southern and Republican controlled states are seeing an enormous influx of people because those states have put in place economic policies that are more attractive to the American public than Democratically controlled states like NY and CA. That isn’t an opinion but easily confirmable by economic facts and data.
A few multinational companies want to wade in on political issues with opinions that are not in line what the voters have decided because Texas and Georgia – like most US states – have Republican controlled legislatures even if the national government is currently Democratically controlled.
The solution is pretty simple. On a purely economic basis, it isn’t worth giving American, Delta, Coke, UPS or any other company that is headquartered in a state that has or will have their own version of voter equity laws.
GA. Georgia Kemp has invited anyone in the opposition to debate him about what is wrong w/ Georgia’s new law. no one will because the arguments don’t work. A number of Democratically controlled states have more restrictive requirements on a number of issues than Georgia.
I don’t live in Georgia or Texas. I don’t vote in either of those states – and neither does American, Delta, Coke or UPS because corporations don’t vote; individuals do.
If companies want to wade into partisan politics – regardless of the party – they need to expect they will be given no special treatment and, in fact, might be subject to some of the Democratically oriented taxes that those companies think they are free from – like aviation taxes, higher minimum wages etc.
American, Delta etc aren’t going to leave Texas or Georgia because it makes good economic sense to be in those states. Coke isn’t leaving Georgia. period. The southern, largely Republican states simply need to quit pretending that they need to do anything to keep those multinational corporations in-state. They will stay because it makes economic sense to do so. Likewise, those states need to do what makes economic sense for them – which means that it is not necessary to provide incentives for those companies – and, in fact, taxes targeted at those companies might be in order.
Lots of political hacks and extremists don’t read the proposed bills that they oppose.
President Biden’s $2000 billion infrastructure bill sounds great until you begin to read it. Lots of wild stuff in there, not just roads and bridges.
When you care more about kowtowing to the deranged virtue-signaling outrage mobs than you do about using your common sense and brain, you deserve all the blowback you get. Just goes to show that being a CEO of a huge corporation doesn’t mean you have a lot of common sense.
And Delta is cancelling flights Easter Sunday because it doesn’t have enough pilots – just as has been the case every holiday since Thanksgiving. Pilot chat forums say that Delta is suspending seat blocking in order to accommodate everyone.
To say this has been an epic week of a corporate failure is an understatement.
Is American going to stop flying and stop bringing business to ACTUAL non-democratic countries or ones with ACTUAL human rights abuses?? If they do that then I will take them seriously and even though I will disagree with their politics, will respect them for their principles. American Airlines couldn’t give two sh*%s about its customers….but when the government just gave you billions in bailouts you better do what you are told. And same goes for American Airlines employees that demand “American do the right thing”Why don’t you Demand american stop doing business in bad countries or STFU about your fake outrage to american politics?
I love the smell of virtue signaling in the morning
From AA’s Conditions of Carriage:
To fly on American, you must:
Have a valid photo ID accepted by the TSA (like a driver’s license or other government issued ID).
Also:
To ensure a safe environment for everyone, you must:
Show a valid ID.
“American can hardly be faulted – they are surely less interested in the specifics of the bill than being on the right side of public opinion.”
Of course they can be faulted. If the TX bill is anything like the GA bill, it’s a whole bunch of nothing. Considering how none of these voter integrity laws have anything to do with aviation, AA should avoid any comment on the legislation at all. Especially since they haven’t even read it! At some point, AA will need a favor from TX gov’t, and if you do dumbass woke virtue-signalling like this, TX gov’t is WAY less likely to help.
American wants to be like Delta in any way that doesn’t cost them money.
OOOHHH Dan Patrick !! Big Deal another moron like Abbott.
Wasn’t this the bill the legislature released at night in the last 45 minutes of the session?
And better that American was outright opposed to more racist voter-restriction laws — all of which have much to do with Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and being buttressed by his sycophants and enablers — than doing what Delta allegedly did: namely having a hand in crafting garbage legislation.
Voting for citizens should be easier, not more difficult. Anyone opposed to that needs their head examined.
Take them seriously when they support raising the corporate tax, capital gains tax, and tax on people like Parker, along with cutting out option loopholes. Virtue signaling is cheap.
What a shame! I bet there’s a lot of damn finely nuanced racism and disenfranchisement in that bill. Could be Texas’s best poll legislation since the 1960’s 🙁
I echo Chopstix’s quote for another reason, Gary, and that is “public opinion” has consistently shown that they want and believe in ballot integrity. Just look at polls that ask whether voter ID should be reuqired when voting, and you will see vast majorities supportive of same, even with respect to what are termed minority groups — counter to what many above have claimed.
Therefore, I take issue with your implicit statement that corporations want to be on the right side of public opinion since public opinion is supportive of Voter ID and other ballot integrity mechanisms.
However, I do applaud you for your much more moderate and nuanced tone when it comes to debates such as this, coming from you since your move to Texas!
It’s done you plenty good!
To me it appears these companies are pandering to the people in power for favor and the people in power now are WOKE, so I expect to see more of this till the 2022 mid term election and then we will see how WOKE the gerneral public.
American Airlines is speaking out against racism and racists speak about Woke. I am thrilled that corporations are confronting these issues, and could give a rats ass that racists complain. U Gary are obsessed with insulting people defending people’s right to vote and others issues affecting black and brown people. U folk don’t like two things 1) being called racist 3) black and brown people
No one reads anything anymore and relies on the media to tell them what to believe. All you need is a headline and millions believe it. Stacy Abrams took millions from Bloomberg and got what she wanted and a cush new job from Biden. I could have told you Warnock and Ossoff were going to win before the election. Should these made up “non profits” bus people and provide them food to get them to the polls? Absolutely not. Is asking for a photo ID really a big deal? Again, absolutely not, I have yet to see a person say they were marginalized for not having ID. An 18 year old knows how to get an ID, an adult should have no problem. How do they cash checks? Apply for jobs? Pick up cough meds or fireworks? It just sounds good because most Americans are sheep and will believe anything. Democrat run cities are trash heaps because the model of taxing hard workers and villainizing them to give to the same lazy people doesn’t work. Stop moving to my red state!!!!
Excuse me Gary but who says they are on the right side of public opinion in opposing this? Obviously not the citizens of Texas.
Allen people like you are the very reason that there is so much discord and hate in this country. You state that anyone that was for this bill is a racist? It is that type of thought process that is bringing thus once great country down to its knees. I pity the next few generations.
I have to wonder who in the Biden administration called AA and Delta CEOs and threatened to slow walk the airline covid aid for Delta and AA, or that every future decision by FAA will be negative for Delta and AA, or competition will be increased for those airlines unless they oppose the TX and GA legislation.
In a democracy the citizens have to have faith in the integrity of the election system. I do not know if there was enough voter fraud in the past election to change the outcome but I do know the election bill the Democrats are trying to get enacted right now is an open invitation for mass fraud and the near universal loss of faith in election integrity in future elections. The very idea of being able to walk in and register to vote with no ID on the same day as the election, then be allowed to vote immediately should scare everyone. Organized groups could make sure the same individuals using fake names and addresses travel from polling place to polling place voting multiple times. Mail ballots would be even worse.
IDs can be free and identity can be substantiated many ways that do not create discrimination.
I agree corporations should stay out of politics but they get dragged into it often by the means I mentioned above. A major push in the Biden administration is to force corporations to disclose what they are doing to address Environmental/Social/Governance issues (ESG). Corporations that are perceived as not doing enough may face consequences from agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as investors who are grading ESG efforts by individual corporations. Not a defender of AA at all but even big corporations find it is hard to fight city hall.
my name is Gary Leff
my name is Joe Biden
my name is Kamala Harris
if you ask me to show you ID to prove other wise you are a racist facist nazi
Doug Parker, yea That Baffoon is the Same Idiot that claimed “We will never Lose Money again”…..WTH would Anyone believe a word out of His Mouth? This Guy has absolutely No Credibility and is nothing more than a Modern Day Frank Lorenzo, someone that has a resume of destroying Airlines he manages. Rarely is a positive attribute associated with this Man and the poor Operation he manages.
American, I’m guessing if I forget my photo ID next time I fly that will be ok, right?
@Debbie – you can fly without ID, check in online or with the mobile app and you’ll be asked identifying questions at the tsa checkpoint