If any airline has done reasonably well out of the pandemic, it’s United.
Somehow, it’s avoided being the object of too much derision — other than its fanciful claim that it’s so very hard to get Covid on a plane (so, you know, we’ll try and stuff as many passengers in as we can).
These days, the airline has led the assault on vaccine recalcitrants by insisting employees get vaccinated or lose their jobs, which seems quite boisterously sane.
Yet with confidence comes a certain potential overreach.
No, I’m not specifically talking about the way all airlines, the minute there’s some global event, beg the government for money. Many, many billions.
This little tale involves a perfectly innocent (-sounding) comment made by United CEO Scott Kirby.
Appearing on CBS‘s Face The Nation, Kirby offered many musings about, well, the nation.
He offered copious positive mutterings about the Biden administration. Sample: “I think the administration is doing a really admirable job of trying to find all the levers to push to get the whole country vaccinated, and they have really gotten better data and science.”
Alright, you might be thinking, what does he want?
The administration hasn’t, after all, decreed that all airline passengers must be vaccinated. Neither has United Airlines, oddly enough. Even though, like every restaurant near my house, it could demand proof of jabbing.
So then, why all the governmental praise? Might there be a reason?
Well, later in the interview Kirby mused about the new infrastructure passage. He’s all for it. It’d be good for America to have better airports and air traffic control — the latter of…