Tarver Engineering wrote:

Automation increases productivity thereby reducing labor.

This is far from guaranteed, and there are many factors involved that are
relevant to this discussion.

Most notable is the idea of putting an airspace out to contract every few
years. Given the speed at which technological gear improves and cheapens,
any newcomer has an advantage in such a competition if the incumbent is
still depreciating the investment originally made.

Aware of this, any incumbent must depreciate any new automation over only
the contract period. This increases the annual cost of the automation,
possibly to the point where simply not investing in the automation becomes
the proper choice.

So, in fact, "more" competition in a regulated environment can work against
long term efficiency. This is just one of those oddities of regulated
markets. It is apparently an entire economic subdiscipline.

- Andrew