Machinists Call for Airline Re-Regulation

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Tue, 13 May 2008 11:20:36 -0400, alexy wrote in
:

Larry Dighera wrote:


In any case, from your statement above, it would appear that you
believe that government regulation would result in increased corporate
profits for airline companies. Is that a bad thing for them or their
employees? Would passengers accept the slight per-seat increase in
cost if it meant fewer and shorter flight delays? In a free-market
we'll never have an opportunity to find out.
Actually, in a free market, marketing experts have the freedom to
research what passengers are willing to accept, and if they determine
that passengers would "accept the slight per-seat increase in cost if
it meant fewer and shorter flight delays", they would promote their
on-time performance.

That is only true if logistics permit it.

In the current air carrier free market, it is impossible for an
airline to offer "shorter flight delays," because market competition
forces air carriers to schedule as many flights into hub airports as
they can to reduce competitors' operations into those airports. So
we'll never know.

However, in a managed market, I agree that we
will have the opportunity to find out. Passengers would indeed "accept
the slight per-seat increase in cost if it meant fewer and shorter
flight delays", because they would not have the freedom to do
otherwise; some bureaucrat would make that decision for them, and it
would be forced down their throats.

In a managed market place, there would be no need to offer reduced
delay flights for an increased fare, because it's wouldn't be
necessary for air carriers to overload hubs as a competitive tactic.
Responsible regulators would manage flight schedules, and all would
run smoothly. (Now you tell one. :-))


Responsible managers would do that now and the free market would take
care of letting the passengers self select when they got to a location
IF there were a truly free market now. Most all airports are owned by
state and local governments and for some reason have chosen not to let
the free market set the cost of the good they are providing i.e. landing
spots. If they were to do that the cost of taking off from JFK at 8:00
am on Monday would cost a hell of a lot more than taking off from JFK at
2:20 am on a Saturday. This price difference would then be passed along
to the consumer and the slots would naturally balance themselves over time.