Originally Posted by
Splanky
? We do the best within our abilities and knowledge. Of course any solution man is going to find will be imperfect. No harm in trying though.
Prior to working in this industry, I trusted market forces to work things out and find the best solutions. However, market forces only work if a few things are present:
1) Those in charge actually have motivation to see the company have long term success. Current money-chasers in charge are only seeking the next metric in their bonus scheme.
2) The government is either all in or all out. The government has and will continue to muddle around in airlines too much for the market to correct inefficiencies and problems.
"Exactly my point; it will be imperfect. Even if you assume that "they" (government) will not be self-serving then you are still counting on government cronies to set up the entire top-down controlled system that takes years to make any changes to new market forces. It is
always inefficient. The market can more quickly adapt to the changes than can the government "smart guys." Again, that is if you trust the government to be benevolent... and I don't.
Which begs the question... why is this industry any different? I will grant you that the safety/seniority issues is difficult to tackle. But as an industry, why do we (good "conservative", flag waiving, Constitution swearing pilots) not trust the free market to handle the difficulties? Why do we, like Crandle, look to the government to fix it?
And I do agree with you... the government will continue to "muddle" in the airlines and not allow the market to fix the problems. The problem is that we identify the current "de-regulated" system with the free market... which it is not. Thus we throw the failings of the airline system at the foot of the free market and ask for the government to step in and fix the issues. Yet the free market would tell you it has not been able to work... the government has been in some state of control from the very beginning of the whole industry.