Not sure how many people have seen the latest series on the Today Show called “Today’s Travel Turbulence in the Skies,” but it’s been interesting. They’re inviting a series of airline CEOs to come on and talk about what’s going on. Unfortunately, they aren’t really playing fair.

07_08_24 steenlandtodayFirst up (that I saw) was an interview with Doug Steenland, CEO of Northwest. The first part was with Meredith Viera and the second part involved answering viewer questions with Natalie Morales.

This was no easy interview. Meredith asked questions like “What went wrong and why couldn’t you predict it?” and “Why should I trust that won’t just happen again?” Steenland did ok with the answers, but he just does not come off well on tv. Too stiff.

The second part was even less successful for him. He faced some pretty tough questions like “Why can’t this management admit that they made errors and stop blaming the short staffing, poor employee morale, flight cancellations, and operational problems on the employees, especially pilots?” Ouch.

07_08_24 kellnertodaySo yesterday morning, when Matt Lauer interviewed Continental CEO Larry Kellner, I was expecting sparks to fly.

Would he mention the flight that kept passengers stranded in Baltimore for hours and hours that made Joe Sharkey’s column in the New York Times? Or would he ask about the transatlantic flight with overflowing sewage?

Nope, none of that. Just pure praise and nothing of substance. What a joke. Now, I think Steenland deserved the hard questions, but there’s no reason Kellner should have gotten off so easy. I mean, Matt even said “This is a tough interview for me to do,” rattled off a bunch of great things about Continental, and then followed up with “This is going to be so boring this morning.” As if that wasn’t enough, he then gave Kellner carte blanche to brag. . . . “Without doing a commercial for your airline, why have you been able to buck the trend in the industry and kind of separate yourself from the bulk of other airlines.”

Not cool.