Commentary

Category Archives for Commentary.

Change to Mailing List Version of View from the Wing

by Gary Leff

email
Apr 02 2005

Well over a thousand people currently receive each day’s postings by email. I can’t tell you how great it makes me feel that so many folks opted for that. This site is a labor of love and I really appreciate all the great feedback that I get. I hope that you like the new format of the website. I really do, and appreciate the work that the tech folks put into it. I find it much more readable, and also easier to work with. One consequence, though, of moving from a home grown system to Movable Type is that I no longer have the ability to send out each day’s content by email. Everyone has still been getting the content because I’ve manually been double-adding the entries into the old system in addition to the…

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IRS To Tax Foreign Pilot and Flight Attendant Wages

by Gary Leff

latin american airlines
Mar 27 2005

The IRS is apparently seeking to tax Latin American airlines for wages paid to flight attendants and pilots during the time they spend working over US airspace. (Link via Today in the Sky.) Critics of the move point out that other countries might respond by doing the same to U.S. airlines. Anyone with thoughts on why the IRS is focused on Latin American carriers — and not European or Asian carriers — feel free to offer them in them in the comments.

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Completely off-topic: committing a crime with impunity in a small part of Idaho

by Gary Leff

yellowstone
Mar 27 2005

I just an an really interesting piece to be published in the Georgetown Law Journal (shocking itself, it’s also a good read) that argues there’s a 50 square mile area in the U.S. where felonies can’t be prosecuted: the portion of Yellowstone National Park which is in the state of Idaho. The Constitution’s 6th Amendment requires that juries be picked from the same district and state in which a crime is committed. Federal law sets the district governing all of Yellowstone as Wyoming — logical, as the park is 91% in the state of Wyoming. The districts of Montana and Idaho exclude the park.So juries must be chosen from the District of Wyoming to prosecute crimes committed in the park. However, if the crime is committed in that part of the park that is in…

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This strikes me as bad. Very, very bad.

by Gary Leff

cheerleading
Mar 19 2005

A state representative in Texas wants to ban sexy cheerleading. Legislation filed by Rep. Al Edwards would put an end to “sexually suggestive” performances at athletic events and other extracurricular competitions. “It’s just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they’re shaking their behinds and going on, breaking it down,” said Edwards, a 26-year veteran of the Texas House. About the only redeeming thing in this idea is a middle-aged state legislator talking about young girls “shaking their behinds, breaking it down.”

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Ruminations on Living Wage

by Gary Leff

san jose
Mar 15 2005

Further to my comments on rental car companies being subjected to San Jose’s ‘living wage’ rules, a reader writes: The main effect of raising car rental workers’ wages from $7.50 an hour to $9.66 an hour is that a certain number of honest working people, who are not on welfare and not on street corners selling drugs, will be making the princely sum of another $2.11 an hour — which will make it just a little easier for them to pay for their day care and their rent (although not enough to pay down their credit card balances). To me, that doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing. Why grope around for all of these abstruse and unproven second-order effects, plus make a guilt-by-association reference to apartheid, rather than focus on the main question —…

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Minimum Wage Hike May Be Applied to San Jose Rental Car Employees

by Gary Leff

rental car
Mar 14 2005

Via Tripso Daily the San Jose Airport Commission has voted to recommend to the city council that airport rental car company employees be subject to the city’s ‘living wage’ rules. The average wage for the 700 or so employees is reportedly $7.50 an hour. Under the city’s living wage policy, the workers would make a minimum of $11.11 without benefits, or $9.66 an hour with benefits. The actual impact of minimum wage rules is always hard to predict. Increasing the minimum wage doesn’t always lead to unemployment as critics would suggest, often because the prevailing wage is already higher than the minimum wage. For instance, increasing the federal minimum wage to $6 wouldn’t have a tremendous impact on rental car employees at the airport, since their average wage is already more than that. At the…

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How to destroy air travels and take away freedoms in one easy lesson

by Gary Leff

airport
Feb 28 2005

Quick quiz: What does TSA stand for? (T)aking (S)cissors (A)way (T)housands (S)tanding (A)round (T)ourism (S)uppression (A)gency Before deciding, please consider that The Department of Homeland Security is drafting a rule that will require airlines to pass on passenger manifest information as much as an hour before the departure of international flights bound for the United States Requiring information to be submitted an hour before flight takeoff involves a full 75 minutes greater notice than currently provided. This will mean passengers turning up at the airport at least an additional hour in advance of flight time. Multiplied across all the passengers each day, that’s millions of lost productivity hours each year. The problem compounds itself for connecting flights. It’s as yet unclear whether a passenger will have to have arrived at a connecting airport before the…

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My Point Blog

by Gary Leff

airplane
Feb 23 2005

Flyertalk welcomes a new blog, My Point by Joe Turner. Looks like posting has been going on for a couple weeks, though I just noticed it. Readers of this blog will probably enjoy that one. It’s also worth a mention that David Rowell has a new blog as well.

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Customer Influence

by Gary Leff

hertz
Feb 23 2005

Keith Alexander, whose Washington Post columns I generally quite like, this week reviews the recent history of customer activism and their successes in changing the policies of travel providers. Last week, numerous complaints prompted Hertz to back off a plan to introduce a $2.50 reservation fee on all of its vehicle rentals in the United States. …Hertz acted on the reservation fee after several large clients organized an e-mail campaign and other regular customers posted a “boycott Hertz” message on FlyerTalk.com, a popular Internet message board made up of some of the nation’s most frequent — and influential — travelers. …In 2002, Delta’s frequent fliers were outraged when the airline reduced mileage awards on steeply discounted tickets. They created a Web site called SaveSkyMiles.com and raised money to send a truck-mounted billboard protesting the change…

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Southwest and American Posturing in Dallas

by Gary Leff

american airlines plane
Feb 23 2005

Arguments over the Wright and Shelby Amendments restricting flights out of Dallas-Love Field are reaching absurd proportions. For years Southwest, which is based at Love Field, has maintained official neutrality to the federal rules which limit flying out of the airport to contiguous states. It took years of litigation for Southwest to even be able to use the airport, which had otherwise been abandoned for the Dallas-Fort Worth facility. I’ve assumed that Southwest’s newfound desire to overturn these restrictions is mostly a matter of posturing. I don’t think Southwest really wants substantial new flying out of Dallas. There’s not much room for expansion out of Love Field. They’re pretty close to maxed out in their existing terminal space. New flights to further away destinations could certainly displace existing flights, and those might well be more…

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