On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stated that the “disaster” with Southwest Airlines flight cancellations wasn’t just limited to the holidays because he has a member of his staff who still can’t get to Washington, D.C. because their Southwest flight was canceled. Khanna also argued that the Department of Transportation should have fined Southwest Airlines months ago and that those fines would have incentivized the company to invest in upgrading its technology instead of spending money on rewarding its shareholders.
Khanna said, [relevant remarks begin around 5:55] “Well, first of all, it was a disaster, not just over the holidays, but still I have a team member who’s stuck and can’t come to the Hill because the person was on a Southwest flight that still got canceled. I believe that the Department of Transportation should have made clear fines for companies like Southwest and that would have incentivized Southwest, instead of doing the billions in stock buybacks to invest in their I.T. system. Because we didn’t have those fines six months ago, because there were not those consequences, there was not the same accountability for the Southwest CEO.”
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