Think Twice Before Bringing Cash To The Airport [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News notes from around the interweb:

  • Think twice before heading to the airport with that huge wad of cash

  • A bipartisan group of legislators has signed on to extending payroll support for airlines, supposedly 223 members of Congress. This is insane.

    Southwest Airlines says they don’t even need to furlough anyone this year, without the money. American Airlines told employees last week they’re supportive of the effort, but can’t publicly lobby for it – because there’s no question of the survival of the business at this point. Moreover there’s just less consumer demand for air travel, airlines need fewer employees, paying those employees not to transition to new industries delays the economy’s recovery.

  • That’s some hardball negotiating from United, ‘thunderdome for regional airlines’:

    United Airlines has told two regional airlines, ExpressJet and CommutAir, that it will drop its contract with one, according to a pilot union letter reviewed by Reuters, in a potentially mortal blow to the losing carrier as the coronavirus pandemic guts demand.

    ExpressJet and CommutAir each work exclusively for United and the plan would mean one would lose its major source of revenue.

  • Does Vietnamese fish sauce come from Ancient Rome? Ok, it’s the fish sauce that traveled, a long time ago, but that’s enough of a travel connection that I wanted to share this hypothesis.

  • These days I’ll take any 747 flying that I can.

  • Hotels are struggling like never before. in-person events of any size are questionable for some time. So naturally my city of Austin will use a 2% increase in hotel tax to make its convention center bigger.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. You know for those of us on the downside of our life all these programs are just peachy what I fear for is my kids and their children who will be paying for this mess for generations, unless of course there is a worldwide conflict. Remember history always repeats itself.

    This airline bailout is crap pure crap. Let’s just nationalize all the companies in the US, thats what is going on now.

  2. Thats interesting. I’ve read about garum before. Historians usually describe it as “vile” since it was made from fermented fish entrails in amphorae. The Romans loved it though, which makes a lot more sense given that it tastes similar to Vietnamese fish sauce. That stuff is quite good.

  3. I would have to think that actual drug dealers know about the seizure policies, and use other ways to move money around, so that most of the victims of these unconstitutional seizures are ordinary people who don’t realize the risks. They should be required to put the money in escrow, and return it if the passenger is not convicted of a crime.

  4. Fish sauce article interesting

    – Sadly South China Morning Post website returns its digital paywall next month.
    It was great while it lasted for HKG news.

  5. I just don’t see how the seizure is constitutional. Any updates on the Institute for Civil Justices class action suit that you covered in January?

  6. I have to say that increasing the convention center size now is actually something that makes sense. Eventually this pandemic will end and events will return. The convention center’s been too small for years, so using this time, when it’s sitting empty, to do major construction, seems like a good idea. Of course, it won’t actually get worked on until it inconveniences someone is inevitable.

  7. The cash seizures are excellent evidence for the proposition that the only thing standing between the government and your money is a jury of your peers.

    With the jury in the middle, they have to vilify you first before they go for the money (e.g. Mike Milken).

    When they can dispense with that pesky little impediment, they don’t even bother with vilification. It’s just “here’s your boarding pass; have a nice day.”

Comments are closed.