Michael Whitaker:

Well, I don’t really think you have a choice but to fund a lot of these infrastructure projects, because I think we haven’t quite realized how badly the economy has been hit by this pandemic. So in some cases, this is just changing your priorities. So instead of spending billions of dollars subsidizing fossil fuel businesses, you take that money and you put it toward a different type of energy, and you take money and put it toward accelerating programs in the air traffic control system that will allow more efficient and thus environmentally friendly operations. You don’t want airplanes circling around in the sky waiting to land. So I think it’s really a question of priorities and the money has got to be spent or the economy’s not going to recover. So I think it just needs to be part of the program.

Ken Quinn:

It seems now deputy secretary, Polly Trottenberg, who has vast experience in federal government and also local government transportation needs. And so are you impressed so far with the team they’re assembling in D.C. to deal with transportation overall?

Michael Whitaker:

Well, I would start by saying I think I’ve never seen an administration move so quickly to populate these key roles. I mean, that’s really been a very impressive thing to watch. A lot of people who we’ve seen before, so a lot of experience who can come in there and know how things work and get things moving very quickly. So Polly and the 30 other people that were appointed on Day 1, I think it’s been a really strong start and allows you to just not miss a beat and get to work on things that need to be done really quickly.

Ken Quinn:

Yeah. I think a lot of folks were concerned that DOT was a bit home alone with a lot of these jobs remaining vacant for a very long period of time. And now we have people like Bradman’s, an experienced aviation person. We have great diversity and inclusion. It seems in the political appointees in the Biden administration overall, including at the department. Sara, is that something that you folks are happy with?

Sara Nelson:

Yes, definitely. And we need these projects up and running. I’m thinking about the infrastructure work. Think about the kind of good jobs that you’re creating by modernizing our ATC program and how we’re all going to benefit from that. And at the end of the day, we know that if we have good jobs, then we have people who can afford to buy airplane tickets. It’s as simple as that. And you have money that’s pumped back into cities and states to maintain these programs locally. So these investments are really going to benefit the larger economy and continue to promote good jobs that allow us to spend back into the economy as well.

Ken Quinn:

Yeah. We’re nearing the end, but I want to focus too on the global situation which CAPA Live does. Crises are terrible things to waste, right? And with carriers collapsing, is there not a greater need to take advantage of this opportunity to facilitate consolidation? To inject more health into the global airline industry. And aren’t U.S. carriers better poised to take advantage of that with their global reach and sophistication to be able to acquire other carriers? Might that cause labor unions to take a different stance, for example, on foreign ownership and control to facilitate inter country mergers and consolidation, Sara.

Sara Nelson:

Well, I think that we want to maintain our foreign ownership and control laws here in the U.S. to make sure that our jobs are not outsourced. I mean, if you didn’t have those, you could literally hire every single pilot and flight attendant outside of the United States. So that is an existential threat if we didn’t maintain that here in the United States. But one thing I think that’s very, very important as people are moving straight to what is the market determining now because of coronavirus? And what we have to remember is that this has been a massive disruptor.

We have to shore up the system right now and then the market forces will take over and there probably will be some consolidation, and where that makes sense, we would absolutely support that. But I think that we have to be a little bit careful about moving to that too quickly while we’re still right in the middle of the pandemic and really just trying to shore up the infrastructure and the jobs right now to get through this and to get to the other side where the market can really start to take place again, start to be at play again.