Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Airlines are dramatically hard hit. Travel is in the toilet. So are places that do lodging.
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Would American taxpayers be happy give tens of miliions to an airline that's 90% owned by a consortia of Arab, Chinese, Singaporean and UK companies - some of which are foreign government owned?
Every time there's a crisis (SARS, H1N1, GFC etc) the local airlines have their hands out for taxpayer's money. I guess the idea that airlines are some sort of 'national icon' harks back to 17th century institutions like the Louisiana Company, East India Company etc. I'd rather allow foreign flagged airlines that complied to our safety standards to fly our domestic trunk routes and for us to subsidise local regional airlines. Many of the recent 'rescue' flights from Wuhan, Yokohama, Florida, Montevideo, Delhi… weren't Australian (Qantas or Virgin) flights, they were chartered planes with 'funny' livery, or in one case an RAAF Hercules.
We use empty hotels to quarantine returning residents for 14 days. And to house mildly infected persons who can't stay at home because of elderly parents etc. And hospital staff can stay in a hotel if they want to isolate themselves from family etc.
I never knew there were so many cruise ships, they are floating disaster incubators. I've lost count of how many have had to dock to offload sick passengers in Australian ports. At an educated guess 40% of Australia's cv19 deaths can be traced to cruise ships. It has also emerged that staff hop from ship to ship - as in gig jobs - I think I knew that, but never thought about it. This may have facilitated the rapid spread of the virus between these ships scattered across every ocean.
BR