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The port strike is over, and that is very much good news to the country's economy. Let's welcome in Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Mr. Secretary, always nice to see you. So, good news this strike that started on Tuesday, that's done. It's over for the most part. What do you think the economic impact has been given that it has only been going on for a short time?

Uh well, because it was ended in about three days, uh I think most consumers will not notice something like being unable to get goods that they were expecting. But I will say it takes more than one day's work to dig out the backlog from one day stoppage. So over the next few days, we'll continue engaging with the supply chain players that we have always been talking to anytime there's a disruption, whether it was the Red Sea attacks, or the water in the Panama Canal, or the Baltimore bridge collapse, uh to make sure that things are flowing well to talk about how they're prioritizing goods. Sometimes you have something relevant to disaster relief or perishable that really needs to move ahead in line as that backlog of ships is being addressed. That'll need to work its way through the system in the next few days. But again, because it was a relatively short strike, we believe the economic impact will be manageable for the country. And meanwhile, of course, a big economic impact for the workers. Uh they have been able to secure a raise in this provisional agreement that was reached, $24 over six years for a group of workers who were watching their counterparts on the West Coast get a great deal and saying how can we participate in the profitability of shipping in recent years, the way that the workers on the West Coast have? They went actually without a raise at all in some years under their last contract just because it was negotiated in a tougher economic circumstance, and I'm really glad to see that these workers are going to get much deserved raises.

The raises that you mentioned, Mr. Secretary, over what 60%, 62% to be precise, where do you expect these shippers to pass through price increases to retailers, then retailers push them through to consumers? Do you think there's an inflationary impact here?

Well, if anything, I think they're trying to catch up to wages of workers in other industries. So if you look at a 10-year period, uh roughly starting in 2015, you'll see that the profits of the shipping companies went up by about 350%, the wages of workers around the country went up by about 42%, but the wages of these dock workers went up only about 15%. Uh so they feel that they're playing catch-up. And one of the things we've seen time and again with the historic contracts that have been reached, and I'm thinking about UAW as an example, uh but also railroad workers, is that you see workers getting a major raise, but one that is totally consistent with uh the job growth, economic growth, and profitability that we've seen, because both of those things really can and have traveled together. You add to that just the fact that the disinflation we've seen getting inflation from about 9% back into the 2% range, a big part of that was because of improvements in our supply chain fluidity. And I think this is one more investment in keeping those supply chains moving.

I would love for you to respond to this one. So the Wall Street Journal Editorial board, this morning, wrote a piece on the port strike and here was their quote. They say that, quote, unions have a choke hold on commerce. We love to get your take on that one.

I just don't think the big problem in this country right now is workers making too much money or working conditions for workers being too good. They they've made a lot of progress, but let's be very clear. And let me say, I really appreciate the companies in this negotiation stepping up to lead, bringing this to a close. Uh both parties really did a lot of work to meet each other in a deal space and get this done and and that's something that's especially important to our economy and something that's important in this disaster recovery context. But I just want to be clear here that all of these gains for workers have been a long time coming. They come after a decade long, decades long stretch of widening inequality in our country. And they come at a time as these companies have become enormously profitable. So again, you know, some commentators may grumble, but the reality is, we are seeing enormous growth, enormous profits, and big wage gains for workers. Those things should travel together, and that's what we're seeing right now.

You and I have talked a lot uh in your current position, Mr. Secretary, about the state of the airline industry. So investors coming to Yahoo Finance this morning, they're seeing shares of Spirit Airlines down over 40% on a potential bankruptcy filing. Now, this was the low-cost operator. This was supposed to be a good thing for consumers. How concerned are you about competition if Spirit were to go away?

Well, I'm always concerned about competition in the airline sector because this is a sector that used to have dozens of players and they were consolidated, especially over the last 15 years to where we're really at a big four and then and then some low-cost competition. Uh so, you know, any one company, of course, has its own issues as a business, but when I think about the industry, the sector and the industry structure, it's certainly a concern.

Do you, I mean, the regulators blocked that JetBlue transaction. I mean, do you think that's something, some more consolidation needs to happen, you know, given where energy prices are going, more of these airlines to combine forces, get greater economies of scale so we don't see something like what may end up happening with the Spirit Airlines?

Well, if an industry has gotten so consolidated that just four companies have the massive proportion of the business, it's hard to look at that and say, well, the problem must be that the industry is not consolidated enough, right? I'm very skeptical of the arguments that say there needs to be less competition so that we can somehow have more competition. But we're not fundamentalists about this, right? I mean, you look at the Alaska, Hawaii merger where they were able to demonstrate a different set of merits and were able to put forward a number of provisions that we negotiated with them on passenger protection, service protection, even making sure that the rewards program in the new merged entity didn't disadvantage people from one airline or the other and allowed that to advance. So, you know, we're going to, from a regulatory perspective, when these competition issues come up, we're going to keep taking them case by case and make sure we do the right thing based on our legal authorities and responsibilities. But bigger picture, this is an industry where we would like to see more competition.

Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, always great to get some time with you. We'll talk to you soon. Stay safe.

Thank you.