American Airlines today announced that after cancelling over 3,000 flights last week, it was returning all its planes to full service tomorrow.
“Because we’d been losing money on every flight, it was great saving all that money by not flying,” a spokesperson said. “But we’ve milked this as long as we can.”
Officials pronounced the week-long voluntary grounding program an unqualified success.
“Not only did we save a few million bucks, but the public is blaming the FAA, not us, for all the flight cancellations,” the spokesperson said. “Thus, we expect even further dividends from our program down the road. Now the public will start putting pressure on the FAA to back off on their safety rules and regulations, and with those onerous obligations out of the way, we can continue to save even more money.”
Pointing to a cost-savings chart, the spokesperson explained that six months of reduced maintenance and safety checks would more than offset the cost of a crashed plane.
“Lawsuits from grieving and angry relatives may significantly erode the savings,” the spokesperson acknowledged, “But we’re trying to rush a bill through Congress that makes the airlines immune to such collateral damages. We believe that if the telecommunications industry can seek immunity for breaking the law by spying on Americans, we are certainly entitled to immunity for following new rules and regulations.”
Responding to critics who accused the airline of cynically blaming and pressuring the FAA in an attempt to save money, the spokesperson replied that what American did this past week “was in the great American tradition of responsible economic policy."
"We’re like the farmers who used to get paid for not growing crops,” he insisted. “We hope to become the new leading economic model for the airline industry and return to profitability by not flying more frequently.”
