Buttigieg in September: airline issues would "get better" by holidays

Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg said in September that he was increasing pressure on airlines. He told this to insomniacs who stay up late to watch "The Late Late Show with James Corden."

Well, that didn't work out so well for travelers over the Christmas holidays as many thousands were stranded at airports while Pete chest-fed his baby as his husband sat by proudly watching. [Just kidding--men can't chest-feed because they aren't women, the only gender who can.]

Now he's being blasted for his response to the airline clusterfrack after assuring Americans that air travel issues would improve before the holidays, proving talk is cheap and that he got the job mainly because he's gay.

In the September TV appearance Buttigieg said he was increasing pressure on U.S. airlines after travelers experienced an expensive and chaotic summer.

"I think it's gonna get better by the holidays," the incompetent clueless transportation secretary said at the time. "We’re really pressing the airlines to deliver better service. So many people have been delayed, been canceled, it happened to me several times this summer. And the fact is they need to be ready to service the tickets that they're selling."

"If you've ever been mistreated by an airline, if they haven't given you the refund they owe you, if they haven't lived up to their customer service obligations, we will have your back," he claimed. "We went from zero of the top 10 airlines committing that they're going to provide a meal or hotel, for example, to eight out of 10 doing it. So we're pushing them."

This week, Buttigieg called on Southwest Airlines to fully compensate customers for travel, meal and lodging expenses after thousands of flights were canceled and travelers were left stranded at airports over the holidays.

Buttigieg is taking heat from both sides of the political aisle over the situation and his inability to handle it.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told Sean Hannity that Buttigieg should increase pressure on Southwest Airlines and audit to see how billions in taxpayer-funded relief the company received was spent. She explained that her role on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was a main reason to her need in finding answers to the problem as well as the fact that her own kids were stranded at BWI Airport in Baltimore on Christmas Eve.

"[T]his hit close to home, because my kids my teenage kids got stranded in Baltimore trying to make it home on Christmas Eve. And even today, five days later, we still don't know where their luggage is right now," she said. "And so we've been personally impacted by this."

Isn't it always most important to politicians when they are directly affected by the policies they voted for? Had this happened to Pete Buttigieg's husband, things would likely have been different.

Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), agreed with Mace's sentiments, asserting to Hannity that Buttigieg is unqualified to serve in his current role, pointing to the supply chain crisis early in his tenure, [and the unfilled potholes in South Bend, Indiana where he was mayor].

"Earlier this year, we had the rail strike potential looming over us," Van Duyne said. "We were going to have, again, I mean, a massive amount of hit to our economy. You're going to have municipalities that couldn't get chemicals to be able to treat their water supply. And where was Pete? Oh, that's right. He was on a family vacation in Portugal."

"This is a man who was not qualified for the job, has never really been on the job," she added. "And we've trusted him with $1.2 trillion worth of taxpayer dollars."

The Alfred E. Neuman 'what, me worry?' impersonator was warned by Democrats in his own party about concerns within the airline industry before Southwest’s mass cancelations. 

"The problems at Southwest Airlines over the last several days go beyond weather," Sen. Maria Cantwell, (D-WA) the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee on Commerce, said in a statement Tuesday. "The committee will be looking into the causes of these disruptions and its impact to consumers."

Cantwell, along with Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and stolen valor perpetrator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) filed a comment in November to the Department of Transportation on the need to hurry its process to finalize a rule to ensure that consumers are properly refunded for cancelations and get accommodations.

In August, a bipartisan group of 38 state attorneys general wrote to Congress saying that Buttigieg was failing to adequately respond to airline consumer complaints, and they asked for legislation to allow states to enforce federal consumer protection laws.

"Americans are justifiably frustrated that federal government agencies charged with overseeing airline consumer protection are unable or unwilling to hold the airline industry accountable and to swiftly investigate complaints submitted to the US DOT," read the letter signed by Arizona’s Mark Brnovic, New York’s Letitia James and others.

The Senate Commerce Committee stated that it would investigate Southwest for the cancelations, but not Pete Buttigieg because he falls into a victim status category. 

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