DeadHead

A lot of good points here, personally I feel as though we would be trading one evil out for another by regulating an industry. In the past years, our government has done the greatest job regulating and overseeing, i.e. Finance Markets.

So instead of dealing with out-dated, cash-hungry, selfish, uncaring Airline Managers, we will be dealing with corrupt, power-hungry, money-hungry, uncaring bureaucrats.

Airline management only cares about money and security in a constantly changing playing field, whereas Government Officials care about money, campaign-donations, partisan obligations, and power.

I know I'm paraphrasing by generalizing, but I'm looking at worst case scenario and it behooves us all, as pilots, to at least have the people controlling out industry to have some vague interest in what will undoubtably affect us all.