Tuesday, February 22, 2005
DFW
I am sitting in DFW in the middle of Bush land where the pilot unflinchingly says "guideman" with no note of guilt in his voice, wondering at the demise of the once proud airport to the north, STL . That airport is just a thin veneer of its former self. So I'm wondering what was responsible for the tumbling of TWA and the cathedral walls? What has created the ghost-like quality of the walk down the deserted concourses of the once swarmingly ant hill-like airport?
American Airlines.
Their acquisition of the proud employee-owned airline and the subsequent gutting of its operations in St. Louis have not only rendered a monument to modern transportation (have you seen the clam-like design of Lambert Airport?) into a quaint conversation piece, but they have also taken a model of self governing capitalism and reordered it Texas-style (sound familiar?) as well. And now AA is laying off their own long-time employees.
Perhaps none of that could have been avoided, but as I walk wall-to-wall among the thousands of hub-dwellers here in Dallas, I am thinking - - couldn't some of these people be going north?
American Airlines.
Their acquisition of the proud employee-owned airline and the subsequent gutting of its operations in St. Louis have not only rendered a monument to modern transportation (have you seen the clam-like design of Lambert Airport?) into a quaint conversation piece, but they have also taken a model of self governing capitalism and reordered it Texas-style (sound familiar?) as well. And now AA is laying off their own long-time employees.
Perhaps none of that could have been avoided, but as I walk wall-to-wall among the thousands of hub-dwellers here in Dallas, I am thinking - - couldn't some of these people be going north?
# posted by Michael Christopher : 11:26 PM
Furl It