It isn’t common that there is a Republican Senator speaking out vocally backing union members in a fight with management. And yet, while waiting out an American Airlines flight delay last week Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) took to the Twitterverse to rail against the operational issues the company has been dealing with over the past week. Key takeaway from the rant: it definitely isn’t the pilot’s fault.
And maybe the "mechanical" issues aren’t really such, according to the Senator:
That part isn’t all that off-base, actually. Airlines do come up with creative reasons for delays some times. And it is entirely possible that the delay on this one was to accommodate other passengers. Or that they still had the plane there and they pushed more passengers through because they could. Airlines do it both ways on that one.
Apparently one of the pilots being a tea party member means they never lie:
But perhaps the most strange to me is the Senator’s claim for why he was en route to Washington:
The strange bit here is that this was posted at 8:42pm on a Friday night. Apparently the Senator was on AA 936 on 21 September. That flight did take a 2 hour departure delay and arrived 90 minutes late. But I’m pretty sure the Senate was not in session this morning. In fact, looking at their calendar, it seems they aren’t in session again until Tuesday, September 25th.
Maybe I’m missing something on the schedule and there was business being conducted this morning in Washington. But I’m pretty sure there wasn’t. And while the flight was definitely delayed it the other holes in the story are rather worrisome. Just how much is reality being stretched here??
UPDATE: Apparently there were a few votes in the wee hours. The Senator made it in by the 12:41am vote and got his view heard on a few. And none of them were just one vote off.
Also, for those keeping score at home, the carrier continued to struggle on Saturday, despite having far fewer flights scheduled:
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does not matter if the votes were not close. He and his constituents had their say. And keep in mind politicians on both sides go after each other for missed votes, so can’t blame him for trying to get there on time. Susan Collins of Maine, one of the better Senators in my view, has never missed a floor vote.
Yes, Carl, his constituents deserve to have their say. And there were earlier flights, too. I’m sure he was busy in his district and being in two places at the same time is hard. Sometimes you have to have to make decisions on what’s most important and live with the fact that things don’t always work perfectly.
Flight delays suck for everyone involved. This guy swinging around DYKWIA is just obnoxious. Playing it as a political thing is even worse.