And it created many more.

Pretty sure you're rolling mergers and acquisitions into that, because the only airlines I can think of off the top of my head that totally disappeared over that timeframe were Frontier and Braniff.

How did the Deregulation Act pick anyone's pocket? It opened the industry up to market forces. As you noted, there were a lot of negatives that went along with that, but it also enabled the creation of a lot of good jobs. Circling back to the OP, we're hopefully seeing upward pressure on pilot wages to attract qualified applicants to the profession. Unfortunately, it's too late for either one of us, but we both had good runs.

Eastern.....

'89 strike... '91 ceased operations. Pan Am also went out of business, so both were arguably casualties of deregulation after '86. I'm not saying it was pretty. The 80s were no doubt a blood bath in the aftermath of deregulation. I'm merely agreeing with the poster who stated many of those railing against it wouldn't have pilot jobs if the market expansion hadn't occurred. Yes, those who had jobs would have better jobs if the airlines were still regulated by the CAB. Does anyone really think that would have survived the last four decades?

That electric F-150 goes 300 miles on the energy equivalent of 2 gallons of gas.

How far did a 1970’s for pick up go on a full tank of gas? About…. 300 miles. And we won’t need 40+ years to get there with electric trucks/vehicles. The battery technology is evolving by the day.

It doesn’t take 24 hours to recharge,unless you’re doing it from a 110 outlet. I commute exactly 269 miles to work in my Tesla, and it takes me 25 minutes of charging to make the round trip. You don’t need to “fill er up” you give it just enough charge to get where you’re going, then get a full charge when you’re there.

Boeing just got pecker slapped again, don’t expect the 777x to be along for a long time.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/industri...e-mid-2023-faa

Check the list. It's a big one.

If you favor what Frank Lorenzo did, then I guess you aren't a union pilot.

The decade of excess in the 80's was producing commerce no matter what.

Deregulation and the unscrupulous and unchecked union busters who destroyed the post WWII gains of pilot unions, unionized pilot labor, and pilot contracts STARTED THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM. FACT!

Producing crappy paying pilot jobs is a bad thing. (in the mind of most professional union pilots).

Proponents of deregulation are generally in favor of lower paying pilot wages and the degradation of the career and the profession.

Question: Would you rather be flying a plane for 50 bucks and hour or 350 bucks an hour?

If you're a pilot, then you should know the answer to that question.

It really didn't open it up to market forces. If that were true, then the advantage would not have been squarely on the side of management. Pilots lost with managements, they lost with bankruptcy courts, they lost with mergers, seniority lists, forced arbitrations. The deck was stacked against pilots. If management has a totally unfair advantage over labor, then market forces really cannot be fairly equalized or offset.

Carter and Kennedy assumed market forces would force more competition and lower fares. They didn't see that management had such an advantage over labor. Ironic isn't it. For a party to "favor labor" as it does. It most assuredly picked the pockets of Eastern pilots, Braniff, Frontier, CAL, UAL, El Al, Air Florida, Pan Am, Republic, TWA, and Word.

It was never (NEVER) a stated goal of the Carter Administration to create policy or law that was intended to DESTROY or bankrupt airlines. It was their naivety and poor understanding of the advantages that management had over labor that led to so many pilots LOSING their careers. Their homes, their livelihoods. Kahn, nor Kennedy predicted this. If they had told law makers that their policy would result in airline bankruptcies, they would not have had the votes to pass it. Their naivety was in part due to the fact that neither Kennedy, Kahn, nor Carter had a good understanding of interstate commerce.

I'm no fan of deregulation, but wasn't the government airline regulatory framework "big government"? And, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Carter take the government OUT of the business of picking the winners and the losers? How can you be on both sides of this argument?

Merle

I am definitely NOT on both sides of deregulation. I am on the side of the professional dues paying union member pilot.
1. Carter's legislation was called "Deregulation." It didn't actually do that. That was a bait and switch. it removed regulation in some areas only.

2. Carter did not predict the cannabalistic and cut-throat nature that management teams would take in playing pilots against pilots and in devaluing the profession. Carter sought only to increase competition as a way to force competitotrs to lower fares.

3. The post deregulation era created strife in the ranks of labor. Traditionally, labor, and orgaqnized labor would be on the side of the democrat. However, Carter's legislation squarely took aim at organized labor. Thousands of dues paying pilot jobs were cut. Strikes ensued, which resulted in something called "SCABBING."

4. Deregulation created scabbing in the industry.

5. Deregulation started the race to the bottom

6. Deregulation empowered the likes of Frank Lorenzo and made him larger than life.

Interesting words from a liberal paper: Now a days, History says Carter's deregulation is bad.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-e...208-story.html

The words "remove regulations" does have the same meaning as Airline Deregulation Act.

Look at NAFTA. Look at how it was marketed. The North American Free Trade Agreement is anything but free trade. Another bad idea from a bad democrat.

Point of order - the NAFTA was negotiated almost in its entirety during the administration of Bush the Elder (it might actually have been Reagan’s idea for all I know). Clinton just got to take the “credit” for getting it ratified. How do I know? A friend of mine at the time while I was living in DC worked at the USTR, and he was pretty upset to see credit going where it was not due.

another point re NAFTA. One of the primary motivators for NAFTA was to save the US automotive industry from Japanese competition by allowing lower cost sourcing from near shore locations in Mexico and Canada.

All excellent points on the pilots shortage.