After a week of emails and WNBA fans questioning whether players should be allowed to travel on commercial airlines for travel to away games, ECA is bringing this article in response to those questions.

If you are a WNBA fan and you do not have an idea what we are talking about, then we can give you a little background on this subject. Over the past several weeks two WNBA teams were forced to cancel games and one team arrived only minutes before tip off when they were delayed by weather related issues on the flight scheduled to their city.

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One of the teams that we are referring to is the Washington Mystics. The Mystics, who had a game scheduled against the Indiana Fever, were unable to reach Indianapolis because of inclement weather. It was the first game in the WNBA's three year history that had to be cancelled. Then just this past week the Sacramento Monarchs had a similar problem when they arrived 40 minutes prior to game time. This game was not cancelled, but came close to posing another problem for a WNBA team. The question that remains here is should the WNBA players be carried on charter flights for games? Many fans have said yes in response to these problems, because this is the professional level and is just like the NBA.

So if this league is like the NBA, why do they not operate like the NBA? Doesn't the WNBA have the backing of the NBA? Of course it does, so these occurrences should set a standard for changes next season. How much more would it cost to have charter flights for the women the way they do for men. After all, wasn't the WNBA created to make women feel equal on the professional level? Yes, so stop saving money and make changes based upon lessons, not future occurrences.

Although we are only offering opinions based on the readers inquiries, we feel strongly that the WNBA needs to step up and give these teams what they deserve and work hard for all year long. If there is one thing that is clear, it is the fact that they most certainly do not need the hassle of transportation issues between games taking away from their concentration during the season.
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