Hell yes! So it costs them a bit of money, it is going to cost them far more in bad PR, as there are going to be congressional hearings (mark my word) and this will be brought up and harped on (with good reason.)
Did Blanco think to pick up the phone and call the CEOs of American and Southwest? There are procedures these airlines follow, and cancelling flights under these conditions is normal.
Airlines are past PR; they're hanging on by their fingernails, doing what it takes to survive.
Blanco is armchair quarterbacking with this gratuitous shot at the airlines.
Bad PR for the airlines? haha....one or two of them might go under because of Katrina....I bet on Delta
Money is something most of the airlines don't have. United is in Bankruptcy, Delta will likely file in a few weeks, NW is having to break a union to stay solvent, USAir just got bought out of bankruptcy court, TWA is gone, American might avoid filing if fuel prices drop soon.
Instead, they got their planes clear of the storm (know what a storm can do to a jetliner in flight? Google up what happened to the Southern Air Lines DC-9 in Georgia a few decades ago - it changed forever the way the airlines treat storms.) ANd they gave their ground crews a chance to get their families to safety.