On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) called for Congress and the Department of Transportation to investigate the flight issues Southwest Airlines has had, pointed out that the airline industry received large sums of taxpayer funds during the pandemic, and stated that Congress needs to know where that money went.
Wenstrup said, “The complaints that we’re hearing about are, with the refunds, for example, by law, they’re required to make the refund almost immediately for people…but you mentioned it, $54 billion from the federal government to the airline industry. So, where did that money go? And I know it’s pandemic-related. And they say that was to keep themselves afloat, but that’s a lot of money, and Southwest, like you just said, 7 billion themselves since 2020. So, what were you doing with it? And we’re hearing labor shortage, this and that. Well, that should be fairly predictable. Look, the industry is a tough industry, no doubt about it. It’s a lot of maneuvering. But they seemed to have had it mastered pretty well over the years. The storm probably had something to do with this. But we’ve got to take some action in Congress and get some oversight and investigate some of this. The U.S. Department of Transportation needs to investigate. But so do we.”
He added that “a lot of money comes from taxpayers for these airlines to stay afloat and to keep America moving, and allow for travel and business and everything else that they’ve got to be able to answer to.”
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