General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Trump's shutdown is 'unraveling' the aviation system -- and soon planes will stop flying: union reps [View all]The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,692 posts)That is to say, airlines in the U.S. are and always have been private corporations and have never been government entities. And some of the smaller ATC towers are already private (have been for years), as are the flight service stations. I wouldn't want to see our ATC go private but that's not the immediate problem here. The problem is that Trump wants his way and doesn't care whom he hurts, even big airline companies. He obviously doesn't give a rat's ass about anybody's individual hardships. He's already heard from the pilots' union, ALPA, probably the only union in the U.S. whose members are mostly GOPers (I used to work with pilots, and I can tell you that a whole lot of them are ex-military and very conservative), but he doesn't even care about them. Trump is also unable to foresee consequences; when something bad happens you can be sure he'll blame someone else.