I am not so sure regulation would be a fix all solution here. Maybe it would assist us in the right direction. The problem as I see it is in the management and business models. For one, management in airlines could be streamlined. Also here's a thought, hire aviation professionals with aviation schooling and experience. In some professions you can use standard business strategies and adapt them to your current niche. Not in aviation. Marketers and managers are interchangeable throughout a wide variety of business, however there are a few business's that need specialized training. For instance, you can't get an undergrad degree in business admin. then top it off with a masters in business admin. and become a CPA. The same holds true to aviation, at least for certain positions within the aviation profession.
Next let's look at what I see as another major disparity. Here's a simple ( at least on paper) route structure problem; I am selecting American airlines at random for this example. Let's look at one city pair, LAX-DFW. A LCC operating one single type can get a fairly accurate cost estimate of this route and based on a certain amount of occupancy make a profit. Now let's take AA. They have many flights during the day between these 2 cities and many different pieces of equipment also. They have an MD-80, 737-800, 757, and 767 all flying between these cities on the same day. While fares fluctuate somewhat, it is basically driven by times( most used time of day)they are fairly similar. The inaccurate models being used to calculate a generic fare spread across the entire fleet you can see how this would not work efficiently. Even if the 767 is full, they are using the same formula that they used for the MD-80.
One other problem no one is addressing is that the airlines are publicly traded companies and the execs answer to shareholders not you. Bottom line is what makes or breaks an airline exec.