You could simply blame it on the oil executives who are hell bent on making their billions grow, but

You could simply blame it on the oil executives who are hell bent on making their billions grow, but the rash of airline bankruptcies points to something simpler - ego. Take Jonathan G Ornstein of Mesa Airlines. Mesa today announced that a budget shortfall might send the company into bankruptcy. Well, he did give away practically free airline tickets in Hawaii to drive the 60 year old Aloha Airlines out of business. He operated in the red and 'couldn't possibly be aware of the looming rise in oil prices'. Many of his employees posted on blogs that he was the worst person to work for and this whole run up against Aloha Airlines was a bad idea. So, the average airline support person has more sense than the CEO (Where do they find these CEOs? In caves?) But wait maybe he did see this coming. In 2007, he exercised $2.8 million of his stock options out of a total of $3.3 million. Any more that the 2.8 and the SEC might be doing some investigating, eh? But Jonny Boy wasn't the only one to take the money and run while making poor decisions for Mesa. Michael J. Lotz , President and Chief Operating Officer cashed in on $2.2 million out of his $2.8 total. Brian S. Gillman , Executive Vice President, converted $680k out of $760k total (i.e. 90%). So I guess everyone knew there were some bad decisions being made and the time to get their money out was last year (while los angeles county department of health services driving Aloha out of business and putting almost 1000 lifelong Aloha employees out of a job). Now, Mesa sees the writing on the wall, but the CEOs and prezzies made off with their millions. Mesa employees will now have to complete with ex-Aloha employees for the diminishing job opps. Now tell me why these CEOs and executives deserve compensation 100 times as much as their average employee?