You know things have gotten bad with the airline industry when Congress is mulling over potential legislation and presidential candidates are getting air travel questions on nationally-televised debates. Last night, amidst arguments over health care, war, education, and other topics that generally fuel political discussions, Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, had an airline question thrown his way:

“More than one columnist covering the field of transportation has compared our current commercial aviation business to Aeroflot in the old Soviet Union. One writer said, ‘Hold on, that’s insulting to Aeroflot. They have raised their service.’

“The question to you is, how did this country get into a state where point-to-point air travel is no longer truly dependable, but more important, what would you be truly willing to do as president to fix it?” (From MSNBC)

Senator Obama said it would definitely be a priority, but as the question came in the “lightning round,” there wasn’t much time for details.

The senator most likely won’t be the only presidential candidate to receive this type of question over the next year. But I am still very interested to see if all of this potential political/governmental activity actually causes the airlines to take action and make changes on their own.