Having just spent way too much money on airline tickets yet again, this article is called to mind. It’s a call for the airlines to be partially re-regulated by one of the strongest proponents in the original deregulation debate. It’s a good read, and his arguments for partial regulation of the industry are strong. He notes three major problems: that unfettered competition doesn’t work well in the airline industry because it operates more like a utility than a business, that the US government has been indifferent to upgrading the national infrastructure be that railroads, airlines, or even our ubiquitous superhighways, and finally the government has failed to provide things that only it can, like a new air-traffic control system.
I’m not an airline industry insider. I can’t speak to the many nuances of running an airline, but I know as a passenger that things have gotten progressively and significantly worse over the last few years, and as much as I’d love to lay the blame at the foot of the airline industry itself, I see cracked walls, rotting carpet, and terminals leftover from the 80s at all the major airports, which are largely a federal, state, and city funded affair. I see miserable workers who I can’t help but feel sympathy for when I have to complain to them that my connection was missed and i need a hotel room or my bag was lost. They’re not holding backup planes like they used to. They’re running too much traffic on far far too few staff. And it’s obvious that they’ve all got just enough money to keep alive right now, and if another big event comes along, be it a weekend without air travel or another mideast oil crisis, I can’t see anything that will keep this industry afloat.
