CNN Money, Fox News and the rest of America are buzzing over thousands of airline flights canceled over the last few days. Although some mention that high oil prices share part of the blame, the real reason the airlines aren't flying is that they are completing inspections that should have been done before this week.

After Southwest Airlines got slapped with a $10.2 Million fine for failing to comply with the letter of the law on some inspections, Congressman James Oberstar got involved and started questioning the FAA's relationship with the airlines. In a hearing on 3 April, fingers started flying in all directions, placing blame, and the FAA took several major hits.

One of the major accusations is that the FAA is too friendly with the airlines and that it overlooks violations by those big companies. Some FAA inspectors even accused their supervisors of threatening them for trying to cite violators. It can't be a coincidence that Southwest's fines and Oberstar berating the FAA immediately preceded major airlines canceling thousands of flights in order to catch up on mandatory inspections.

So, the FAA has some shady deals going and hasn't been upfront about it. Fine. Finish pointing fingers and move on. The question is: now what?

Is the FAA going to get cleaned-out? Let's get started. Are FAA inspectors going to conduct and enforce more inspections? We'd better find money to hire a lot more. Are we going to expect the airlines to do all of their inspections on time or not? If so, how are they going to catch up and then keep up without major delays? How are we going to change the culture of favoritism that exists between the airlines and the FAA?

Any thoughts?