Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) together with other transport unions, organisations and corporations has sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to stabilise energy markets and end the ”rampant speculation” that has lead to recent increases in oil prices and put an ”economic stranglehold” on US airlines.
Included in the letter were three points that ALPA believes should be addressed by congress: closing loopholes that allow institutional investors to avoid limits on the size of their investments; ensuring all energy traders are subject to the limits imposed on US exchanges, and imposing appropriate disclosure/financial requirements on institutional investors.
”Our country”s airline industry stands on the verge of an economic crisis rooted in record-high, irrational oil prices,” said ALPA president John Prater. ”Congress needs to act now to stabilise energy markets and rein in all the out-of-control fuel prices that are setting the stage for financial disaster for US airlines, their employees, and their families.”
ALPA wants congress to create a long-term energy policy and to ”reform existing policy to ensure a fair, transparent and balanced energy commodities market,” it said in its statement. It believes current policy allows speculators to earn huge profits in the energy market while driving up the oil price for consumers.
Prater added: ”The US airline industry is already struggling to gain its economic footing. The current policy that allows speculators to exploit energy markets for profits while hard-working airline employees face layoffs is unconscionable.
”Congress owes it to our nation”s workers to act immediately to put fairness and balance back into the nation”s energy markets and bring the cost of oil under control.”
A number of airlines have gone bust this year, largely down to the rapidly inflated cost of jet fuel, and it”s thought up to 100 US communities will lose air links by next year because of this.
ALPA is the world”s largest pilot union, representing 55,000 pilots at 40 airlines in the US and Canada