was deregulation of arilines good for America or bad?

[rainy]

I have a friend, a pilot for Delta, who says it was a good thing?

[trof]

1. For America? Complicated. For me? Simple.

Deregulation was a career killer for me.
The damage to airline employees of the time, and their families, is incalculable.
How old is your Delta friend?

[rainy]

4. my friend is 43 about

He says it was good for the industry. We were discussing privatization and deregulation. He is a Republican.

[trof]

6. OK, I've got 20 years on him.

If he had been working for an airline back then he'd have a very different view. Especially if he worked for Eastern, Braniff, Pan Am, TWA, National, New York Air, Air Florida, and on and on.
None of these companies exist any more.

At 43, he's probably been with Delta less than 15-20 years. He stepped in after the carnage.

Alfred Kahn, the architect and main cheerleader of deregulation, is the most hated man in aviation amongst us old timers. Even more than union-busting, blood (livelhood) sucking Frank Lorenzo.

[Skittles]

9. trof, you're only 63 and you call yourself OLD ?

PLEASE.

[Skittles]

2. I can't think of ANY deregulation that was "good for America"

I mean, NONE.

[BrotherBuzz]

12. You took the wind out of my sail...

Nothing, repeat nothing, has improved after deregulation unless one considers increased fat cat stockholder dividends "good for America". Consumers and labor gets screwed everytime!

[Skittles]

17. YOU KNOW IT, BROTHER BUZZ

deregulation is a republican codeword for RIPOFF. They have used deregulation to thieve the country BLIND.

[Jacobin]

20. Yeah. Ask anyone in Russia about "privitization"

Oligarchs just stole the public fisc and raped the country in the name of western style "free markets" ....free to the thieves maybe but everyone else gets screwed.

[ewagner]

3. Depends on your point of view

and opinion on the role of government.

When the first round of deregulation hit, Libby Dole was Secretary of Transportation under Ray-gun. The subject of deregulation was the "slots" into and out of major hubs. The standing theory at the time was that those slots were used to guarantee air service, or at least, a certain level of air service, to all regions of the country. Hence each region had so many "slots" depending on population. The deregulating crew said that these slots belonged to the airlines and not the general public. Hence they could be bought or sold by the airlines like commodities.

At that time I was Mayor of a small town in N Wisconsin. We had two slots (on in and one out) of Chicago and we had air service provided by a small commuter airline. When the new ruling came down, those slots became $$$$$ and our commuter owner was offered what at that time was a small fortune for thos slots. He sold them and we lost air service literally over night. It was done by administrative order and nobody saw it coming (at least in our neck of the woods) so there was no avenue for appeal or right of redress.

I allow that others might have an equally valid point of view but for the sake of providing air service to aid in economic development, guaranteed air service to rural areas was important and something I fully supported.

[Loonman]

5. Pfffff...bad!

All it did was contribute to their incompetence.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. I thought 9/11 was the ipso facto proof that deregulation of the

airlines was not a good move?

[SEAburb]

8. Bad!! Thousands of people have died since deregulation

due to poor maintenance. Which was caused when airlines had to cut corners to stay afloat.

[Kitsune]

10. Deregulation of business is never a good thing.

The profit motive corrupts all it touches. Service has taken a nosedive and ticket prices have gone up. The industry requires $25 billion bailouts from the government to stay afloat (meanwhile, the paltry millions the government floats Amtrak is considered "wasteful").

edit: damn that typo demon

[Jacobin]

11. Bad. I remember when it was regulated and it was great

Prices were reasonable....none of this $1500 for a one way ticket from Pittsburg to St. Louis if its a last minute flight.

Coach seats were roomy, and hot meals were served that everyone loved to complain about but which were perfectly acceptable.

Airlines didn't do the hub and spoke thing....lots of direct and nonstop flights.

You could actually get jet service to smaller cities rather than having to cram onto a puddle hopper and fly 25 minutes to a hub, wait and hour and then change planes twice more to get where you were going.

In short, we had great air service at reasonable (not cheap) prices.

BTW, there were cheap student fares and fares for the elderly.

I miss it BIG TIME.

Current air service sucks.

[Piltdown13]

14. There are still some student fares....sort of

I booked a trip last summer to Sweden using a travel website specializing in student deals (grad student, so I still qualify even though I'm over 25). The ticket arrived as promsied, everything was great, managed to find a cheap add-on to get me from Indy to Chicago.

Then I get to O'Hare only to find out that in fact, my ticket was essentially stand-by (baggage check person: "oh, you get your boarding pass at the gate"; gate agent: "okay, just have a seat and we'll call you when your boarding pass is 'ready'."); I was the only person in this situation on my outbound flight. Well, I can understand making student fares subject to such restrictions, but what burned me up was that I was NEVER told the ticket would be standby -- not by the website, not by the airline, who even tried to deny it when I asked while checking in for my return flight.

Ultimately, no harm done, I got on both flights (though missing the outbound would have been a major problem, because I was scheduled to give a presentation at a conference). Yes, it was cheaper than my other options, but I guarantee you I would have chosen a more expensive option had I been informed ahead of time that there was a possibility I wouldn't reach my destination. Not sure this wouldn't still happen with better airline regulations, but who knows -- maybe airlines could be required to tell you these things BEFORE you shell out the big bucks.

[baldguy]

15. My sister used to live in Boulder.

I live in Buffalo. She never visited because, she said, it was cheaper to fly to Paris or London from Denver than to fly the Buffalo.

Now, she lives outside Boston and, guess what? Its cheaper to drive. Before the Big Dig, it would've taken just a couple hours more, too.

Deregulation allows corporations to screw thier customers.

[terryg11]

13. my first thought is to say bad

besides the crappy service stagnant prices (although you can get good deals) there is also the fact that the US govt has bailed the airlines out what? 2, 3 times now? Anytime old Uncle Sammy has to give you money it's not a good thing

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

18. exactly - deregulation and LOTS of corporate welfare and bailouts

I hope no one is giving us any crap about the "new, completitive free market in airline travel" because it *is* crap. We've had to subsidize and bailout the airlines over and over again.

[American Renaissance]

16. it had to happen,

Come the late 1970's the airlines were still in a great depression regulatory environment. The CAB was regulating everything to the point of insanity. So the regulatory gridlock had to be broken.

At the same time, total deregulation did alot of harm because it opened the door to alot of bullshit that no one had really anticipated. No one seriously thought there were people who would intentionally bankrupt their own airline.

The old airlines like Eastern were poorly equipped to dealing with a character like Frank Lorenzo who only wanted Eastern so he could loot it. Lorenzo is fortunate he didn't goto prison for the shit he pulled at Continental and Eastern. That guy was such a lowlife that even Reagan, Bush and Gingrich were trashing him. Last I heard he was trying to get into the HMO business.

In the grand scheme of things, deregulation was not bad in its own right, but had the process been managed better there would not have been so much pain.

[Jacobin]

19. How does one "manage deregulation better"?

Isn't that an oxymoron?

The proof is in the pudding. Deregulation of airlines is a resounding disaster.

I've been flying commercially since the late 1950's and I'm here to tell you that it is a fricking disaster.