Doug Parker Strikes Again: American Airlines Fight Against JSX And The Quest To Kill Competition
Even in retirement, former American Airlines Chairman and CEO Doug Parker is still coming after quality air travel and customers having choice. Parker went on Airlines Confidential representing the argument made by his former employer on their quest to shut down Dallas-based carrier JSX.
He called operating out of private terminals a “national disaster just waiting to happen” that is “hopefully not being ignored, but not as urgently addressed as I think it should be.” Then he told a couple of weird stories.
- A friend of his brought a bottle of vodka on the plane with him and he’s in shock that’s permitted. Of course you can check a bottle of vodka on American Airlines, and airports sell alcohol to passengers ‘to go’ which American Airlines has lobbied to shut down. JSX simply doesn’t have the inflight disturbances and diversions due to unruly passengers that you get with American!
- A friend relayed to him “now they actually look at my ID to make sure it matches the boarding pass” offering a made up scare story that even in its particulars doesn’t make his case, since he’s saying they do the thing that they are supposed to do for security.
The truth is that American admitted to employees their real motive in lobbying to shut down JSX: not wanting to compete.
As Robert Isom put it in a closed meeting, though his comments leaked, “If you don’t have to deal with the same DOT provisions, the same FAA provisions, the same security TSA provisions that’s not fair…. I’m quite certain that the FAA, the DOT, and TSA will take a look at what’s going on and make sure that no one is advantaged..” (Emphasis mine.)
As host Scott McCartney points out, Parker was “involved in the creation of TSA after 9/11 and rules like locked cockpit doors, no liquids in large quantities, ID checks, No Fly Lists, etc.”
American Airlines and others have been lobbying to get the TSA to put JSX out of business since their efforts to get the FAA to do it may not work. Yet there’s really no increased security threat from JSX.
- Passengers all go through a weapons-detecting scanner. Bags are swabbed. They can’t bring full sized carry on bags onto the aircraft, even (they’re checked plane-side). Every passenger is checked against government targeting databases like the No Fly List. And the TSA never expressed concerns over their security until airlines began lobbying to put JSX out of business.
- Meanwhile, airport TSA screeners have questionable records on security – whether it’s stealing from passengers, missing dangerous items, or even causing chaos running through the airport screaming about a non-existent bomb and shooting victim.
Anyone that were to arrive on a JSX flight and connect to an airline would still have to pass through security. And 30 seat regional jets from a small carrier just don’t represent the same kind of attractive target as a worldwide flag carrier brand like American. Airport security should be risk- and mission-based.
If you want to hear the security parade of horribles, Parker is a good storyteller. And he scares you with the idea that JSX has 45 planes that could be taken over with boxcutters, despite screening every passenger for weapons and having reinforced cockpit doors.
He never mentions the more than 4 million private flights per year in the U.S. that don’t go through TSA screening either and that lack JSX screening, swabbing, and checking against government databases. He doesn’t argue for a size or weight limit on private jets departing FBOs that don’t have TSA screening. He doesn’t argue for a fuel limit that those planes can carry.
He doesn’t even mention the far bigger ‘vulnerability’ of private aviation because it would hurt his motivated reasoning – he wants to shut down an American Airlines competitor for premium passengers out of their main hub.
Parker says that he’s “not at American anymore” and they “wouldn’t want him doing this” because they “wouldn’t be this aggressive about their regulators publicly.” He’s explained perfectly why, as the retired CEO of the airline, he gets to freelance as their attack dog. The Airlines Confidential appearance on the issue isn’t a one-off. Parker says he personally raised JSX with the TSA Administrator in ex parte communications at a conference last year. And he says that Southwest’s Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson was there and joined his JSX conversation with the TSA Administrator.
I think my favorite comment he makes is to say that he worries TSA won’t do what he’s asking because things have gotten “politicized.” It’s American Airlines, Southwest, and the big pilot union that politicized it!
While Scott McCartney really doesn’t push back much on Parker’s TSA narrative he does ask about the airline effort to shut down JSX’s ability to hire co-pilots fewer hours of touch and go landings and clear air flight since Parker founded a non-profit to support diversity in the cockpit, removing barriers to people becoming pilots. Parker stammered and pivoted back to aviation security.
Doug Parker has a way of crafting self-serving narratives at odds with the facts. He’s been perhaps the single most effective advocate for airline subsidies – for America West when he was CEO there after 9/11, for American and others during the pandemic – and for industry consolidation that’s limited consumer choice. Later in the interview, talking about airline mergers and anti-trust, he offers “I’m always going to say they should get approved.”
He led the demise in experience at American, alienating shareholders, employees, and customers. Even post-retirement his work continues.
