A Stick in the Eye

One of the cornerstones of working in the media is contemplating the “ifs.”

There are a plethora of stories passing by my eyes every day from across the world. Some of banal, some of odd some are interesting.

All of them make you think about “what if?”

Hat tip to Ryan Carney Williams, AKA Ryan Hawaii, for answering one of my biggest “ifs” after he tried to skirt luggage fees by wearing eight pairs of pants and 10 shirts on a flight in January. The result? Apparently arrest at Keflavik International Airport.

I wanted to try this in 2018 and luckily, Mr. Hawaii beat me to it, so now I don’t have to ponder the aesthetics of the inside of an Icelandic airport jail. Whew.

But an even bigger “if” on my mind right now is pondering what if the federal government got its priorities in line and passed an infrastructure bill that not only provided funding our airports, but also gave them the freedom to control their own destinies.

Air traffic continues to boom. Record levels of commercial passengers are going through airports of all sizes. More cargo is flowing through our facilities and general aviation airports across the nation are seeing growth.

Yet despite all the good news, the cuffs remain on our airports.The lack of action has turned “what ifs” into “now what’s” as we see major airports crack under pressure of too much positive growth without support to accommodate it.

What if there still is no infrastructure bill?

What if the bill is dragged into another ancillary fight like border security?

What if ATC privatization sails through federal approval due to a wave of retiring lawmakers with nothing to lose?

And most importantly, what if the economic expansion finally ends in 2018? The Dow Jones Industrial is at an all-time high and we’re in the second longest streak of continued economic growth in the nation’s history. But the yield curve is flattening and what goes up, must come down at some point.

The Great Recession was just a decade ago and it took years to claw our way out. If we shore up the industry’s finances now, it would help aviation weather the storm when it comes and avoid some of the pains we all went through last time around.

Just because the economy is not likely to collapse this year doesn’t mean the urgency is less needed. It’s more important than ever so the “now what” from the “what if” is less painful.