Former Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao reacted to the chaos at American airports after Southwest and other airlines canceled flights over the holiday.
Former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao joins 'The Story' to react to government's handling of airline chaos.
A Southwest Airlines jetliner sits at a gate on the C concourse of Denver International Airport in Denver on Oct. 6, 2021. She added that the coronavirus pandemic greatly affected air travel in that numerous workers, from pilots to baggage handlers, left the industry when the nation essentially shut down.
"These [regulations] are almost sacrosanct to the industry and also to organized labor," she said."So this is a major issue. It is one of the factors contributing to the shortage of pilots. And again, it's very, very sensitive. And both sides — management and labor, and the regulators — have to get involved in examining all of that."
"Southwest is going to have to not only make them financially whole, but find a way to really rebuild trust and confidence again. They pledged to me that they're going to do that. I want to see exactly what that means," he said.The Texas-based airline also released a lengthy statement and apology in the wake of the crisis, which read in part:
"We were fully staffed and prepared for the approaching holiday weekend when the severe weather swept across the continent, where Southwest is the largest carrier in 23 of the top 25 travel markets in the U.S. This forced daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and magnitude that still has the tools our teams use to recover the airline operating at capacity."He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
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