United buying luxury jets during layoffs

[link|http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20011002/bs/ual_buying_luxury_jets_amid_job_cuts_1.html|The case against corporate welfare]

Excerpt:

But critics, including lawmakers in Washington, are angry that United is investing millions of dollars in the new venture when it has announced plans to lay off 20,000 workers and supposedly is fighting for its life. The airline has already received about half of the $802 million that is its share of a $5 billion cash grant to the industry passed by Congress on Sept. 21. United and other carriers are also eligible for $10 billion in federal loan guarantees.

"It's outrageous," said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon and a member of the House Aviation Subcommittee. "On the one hand they say they need an immediate cash infusion from the government, no strings attached, and on the other they are wiring money to France." Mr. DeFazio said he would seek to add conditions to the loan guarantees, including a requirement that airlines could purchase only American-built planes.

Well, this is part of the "Fractional" that was kicking the airline's ass.

So most of them are/were running to get into the Fractional biz themselves, to make the money.

[link|http://www.flightoptions.com/|[link|http://www.flightoptions.com/|http://www.flightoptions.com/]] That's the first link on google for "fractional airplane ownership".

So this isn't quite the spin they're putting on it - if United doesn't buy into Fractionals, they'll lose shitloads of money, corporate welfare or not.

Its part of the reason I'm not real keen to "bail them out" of the jam they put themselves into. I can see reasons for it, but I'm not sure I support them more than letting them do it themselves.

More on fractionals (if anybody's interested) later. (Some on IWE have heard it already)

Addison

Welcome to IWETHEY!