A Positive Labor Day Kickoff
In her annual Labor Day message, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman celebrates the holiday with an upbeat and optimistic message.
Herman says workers have it good because we're living in a "Tiger Woods economy" that keeps rewriting the record books. She points out that unemployment remains at its lowest levels in 30 years and the economy continues in its longest expansion in American history.
Herman says the holiday not only is a good time to celebrate the economic successes that have benefited workers, but it's also an opportunity to honor the people who she says really make the economy perform. That includes workers who build, fix and clean things, and the teachers who spend their days with America's children.
The secretary calls them all "the saints of Labor Day."
But as CBS News Correspondent Maureen Maher reports, the airlines have had one of the worst travel seasons in airline history. Now it's the end of summer vacation and hopefully the end of a season full of flight delays.
"I had a great vacation, not too happy my flight's delayed," said a passenger.
Since June, a month where nearly a third of all domestic flights were delayed, the airline industry has come under attack.
"Every trip is a different story - something crazy happens, some way that they're trying to adjust schedule, trying to fix a problem, putting out fires," said passenger Steve Anastas.
Although most airlines blamed unusually wet weather, United blamed its pilots for refusing to work overtime, regardless of who's to blame.
The results have been the same, with hundreds of cancellations and thousands of delays.
"The friendly skies were very ugly skies this year," said Tom Parsons of Bestfairs.com.
But the season is now over and hopefully according to industry analysts, so are the delays.
"I think everything will get better after Labor Day because right now we're going into what we're calling a soft season," said Parsons.
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