The real reason Oberstar and his cronies fight against consolidation....

[Ben Franklin]

The Anti-Sherman Act and all the other government regulation was and IS needed for a CAPITALIST system to function.

I've always wondered why there were so few guys named "Sherman" in the USA...

Why are we so Anti-Sherman in this country?


Sincerely,

B. Franklin

 

[AC560]

BS. I don't believe that regulation had anything to do with the freight industry.

The CAB set cargo rates as well. I can tell you that the rate for electrical parts (spec code 4416) from ORD to SIN was $4.16/kg if my memory serves me right.

 

[PHXFLYR]

If not for deregulation most of us would not have jobs to complain about. It is a fact the deregulation helped to spur competition and an increase in the number of airlines in the country. With more airlines that equals more jobs.

It may have created all those new airlines you talk about. But out of all them that were created, only one was left when it was all said and done. And none of them had the pay, benefits or staying power of the former legacy airlines they tried to compete with.

PHXFLYR

 

[PHXFLYR]

[...........................

 

[AceCrackshot]

The industry needed deregulating, as did the whole economy.

What it didn't need was crony capitalism. That is precisely what it got.

Deregulation, to be true to the capitalist model, requires a long term approach to the roll-back of the regulatory props. Specifically in the case of the airlines, those props were most specifically the route authorities, which dictated the type of equipment to purchased, and most of the other operational decisions of the airline.

When route authorities went away, many of the the then legacy carriers, notably Eastern and Pan AM, were stuck with white elephant equipment, hubs, and route structures (Pan AM with limited domestic feed and incredibly expensive overseas route structure, and Eastern essentially locked up on the East Coast, Braniff running north-south on long skinny routes, etc.)

Others, like Delta and United were smaller, more flexible, less debt burdened, etc. were much better positioned to compete, and all of this was a function of the .gov's decisions.

At the time, everyone anticipated the consolidation of the majors into 3 or maybe 4 dominant carriers, and we might be seeing that now.

ALPA national did drop the ball at deregulation, bigtime, mostly at the behest of the UA and DL MECs. There are a thousand woulda-coulda-shoulda decisions, and ALPA botched them all, as it has done in the regulatory field since then.

ALPA simply has let the profession die on the vine since 1978. That is an unescapable conclusion, in my mind. It has been due to poor decisionmaking at the top, where very short term considerations regarding the dominant MECs wishes reigned supreme in the decision loop, to the long term detriment of all professional aviators.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

ALPA national did drop the ball at deregulation, bigtime, mostly at the behest of the UA and DL MECs. There are a thousand woulda-coulda-shoulda decisions, and ALPA botched them all, as it has done in the regulatory field since then.

ALPA simply has let the profession die on the vine since 1978. That is an unescapable conclusion, in my mind. It has been due to poor decisionmaking at the top, where very short term considerations regarding the dominant MECs wishes reigned supreme in the decision loop, to the long term detriment of all professional aviators.

I am not saying you are wrong... ALPA has screwed up allot...

but give us some more detail... lots of personal opinion....you got there...