Private Planes: Freedom, Security, and Responsibility

http://www.fee.org/publications/the-...e.asp?aid=4469

/excerpt

These concerns overshoot the runway by a mile. The 9/11 hijackers used
commercial airliners, regardless of claims that they could easily have used
charter planes, because the superior security techniques used by private
charter companies were a sufficient deterrent. Rather than admit that
central bureaucratic control of airline safety has failed, government
officials seem more interested in forcing everyone under the same flawed
management. In other words, while the FAA's farm dog was guarding the
henhouse the fox stole the chickens-so the farmer wants to make his neighbor
use the same dog.

Not surprisingly, members of the commercial airline industry would also like
to see charter services brought under stricter control. According to the
Washington Post, "The Air Line Pilots Association . . . urged the [TSA] to
adopt one level of security for every type of flight, including charter and
small-aircraft operators." This is not the first time that the dominant
members of an industry have begged to be more heavily regulated by
government. Physicians, pharmacists, truckers, railroads, broadcasters-all
have been more than happy to use government power to squeeze out
competition, protect their chunk of the market, raise prices, or all of the
above. As Milton and Rose Friedman noted, "[i]nterested parties go to work
to make sure that [regulatory] power is used for their benefit." And, they
added, "They generally succeed."

/end