Originally Posted by
FetaCheese
Airlines need to be regulated again. End of story. Ever since de regulation it's been a never ending cycle of doom, bust, and Airlines going under. In all the years prior to de-regulation going back to the 20s, the airline industry was relatively stable and the service was much better.
This experiment has failed.
When the airlines were regulated the CAB determine what companies operated and where they flew. If deregulation never happened Jet Blue would never exist, Southwest would still only be in Texas, and there would be no Regionals. While there would still be American, Delta and United they would be about 1/4 of their pre-Covid size. You can argue that Continental, Eastern, PanAm, Northwest and TWA would still be around but the total Major Airline flying would be about 1/2 of what the Majors flew pre-Covid. Under the CBA they was no incentive to add routes and definitely there was no competition. Counting all the flying that the current Majors and Regionals do we would be lucky to see 10% if deregulation never happened. That means 90% of us would never have had jobs to start with!