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If the market is fair there is no problem. The moment you get quasi-monopolies the "market" is heavily tilted in favor of the airline. For example if your flig

If the market is fair there is no problem. The moment you get quasi-monopolies the "market" is heavily tilted in favor of the airline. For example if your flight out of Newark is only operated by United Airlines, what choice do you as a market participant do you truly have? [source]https://futuretravel.today/united-airlines-should-go-out-of-business-325e9983e51f https://futuretravel.today/united-airlines-should-go-out-of-...

choxi 8y ago
There aren't any quasi-monopolies in the airline industry though, are there? I've always found it interesting that the airline industry is very competitive yet airlines haven't gotten any better or cheaper in decades.
- AlotOfReading 8y ago
  Tickets have gotten dramatically cheaper over that period. A round trip ticket to Europe from the US costs under $300. A ticket to Australia can be had for about $600. In Europe, prices have dropped so much that planes are cost-competitive with buses between many neighboring countries. Part of this is because of reductions in services provided to basic economy fares, but ultimately even similar tickets are now about 40% cheaper than they were in the 90s. It's an amazing time to travel.
- InTheArena 8y ago
  This isn’t correct - since deregulation airfare has consistently gone down - 17% over the last two decades. That trend has slowed as we basically have gotten to the point where the cost per available seat mile has really can’t get any lowere without firing half the pilots and skimping on maintainence. Airplanes are being used until they can’t fly any more. Here’s a reasonable summary http://www.aei.org/publication/the-cost-of-air-travel-in-the-us-has-been-remarkably-stable-for-the-last-decade-and-17-cheaper-than-20-years-ago/ http://www.aei.org/publication/the-cost-of-air-travel-in-the...
  - mediawatcher234 8y ago
    You should know that AEI (the source you linked) is not trustworthy on these issues. David Frum was fired by AEI for daring to say that Obamacare might be good, due to "donor pressure" (cite: Axios). (Notwithstanding the fact that some conservatives have tried to deny that's the reason AEI fired Frum) AEI uses motivated reasoning (you might call it propaganda) to achieve their goals - pro-business, pro-billionaire, anti-worker. Anyway. Take any pro-deregulation paper you read from AEI with a HUGE grain of salt. https://www.thenation.com/article/dont-cry-david-frum/ https://www.thenation.com/article/dont-cry-david-frum/ (This comment is /not/ politics - it's important to know the agenda behind sources we cite if we want to evaluate them fairly.)
    - InTheArena 8y ago
      Your response is absolutely politics. You don't debate any of the factual information presented - but simply cast doubt due to a difference of politics and ideology. Your assertion by pointing to a article from The Nation (the oldest progressive journal in the US, as they proudly quote) just emphasis your partisan take. Regardless, In this case - the article is correct, as facts are simply facts, and not partisan. Adjusted for inflation, travel costs roughly half of what it did at the time of deregulation. Since hearing facts from people you disagree seems to offend, I would suggest a separate source on the path of deregulation, the instability it brought, but then the ultimate success - check out Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger.
      - torstenvl 8y ago
        A newspaper, even one with a bias (as they all have), is still a more objective source than an avowedly conservative-libertarian think tank that fires people for having a different view on an issue.
        InTheArena 8y ago
        Source A) I looked up the real cost decline of airfare over two decades, correlated it to infatuation, tracked the entire industry through multiple bankruptcies and re-capitalization stages. The numbers show that airfare has decreased by half over the last two years. Source B) Airfare is now more expensive then it ever has been! Both of these statements were literally published. The first was published by AEI. The second by the Denver Post. One was objectively true. It was not the Denver Post. There is a reason anyone who follows aviation rolls their eyes before reading any newspaper ever on the airline business.
harryh 8y ago
Well, you could fly out of JFK or LGA both massive airports with flights to essentially everywhere.
- CptFribble 8y ago
  For everyone west of the Hudson, going to JFK or LGA to save a little on fare is definitely Not Worth It. - If a friend/family is driving you, that's at least 2-3 extra hours of driving for them, plus extra time buffer up front for NYC traffic, multiplied by rush hour depending on flight time. - If you take train or bus it will be many, many more hours for you. - If you take cab or Uber you'll probably lose any savings on the cab fare - If you drive your own car, long-term parking is substantially more expensive, plus extra travel time the day of and traffic considerations from above car-pool case. Hard to overstate how much worse it is going to NYC airports from west of the Hudson River.
massysett 8y ago
Don’t fly: use a video conference, or just forego contact altogether. Travel by other means: drive, or take a train—-certainly viable in the Northeast. Use another airport: you said Newark, there are (at least) two other major airports in the New York area alone. People usually have multiple choices available. Certainly they have alternatives to flying United Airlines out of Newark. That someone does not like these other choices does not mean they do not exist.
- tlrobinson 8y ago
  Cool, I'll just video conference in to my next vacation in Hawaii.
  - harryh 8y ago
    Luckily you live in SF where you can find a direct flight to Hawaii from half a dozen different airlines so this theoretical monopoly problem will never happen to you for this particular problem.
  - massysett 8y ago
    Or, don’t vacation in Hawaii. You have choices whether you like them or not.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      And those choices include choosing to protest the crappy state of things and suggesting it needs to change rather than happily working around all the crappiness and accepting it as inevitable.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I really hate flying in airplanes in America. I avoid them whenever possible. You cannot go through a line without being molested by the TSA. I really hate being touched, and really really hate it when people touch me below the belt and then try to touch me above the belt (serious OCD). When I do get the additional pat down (which is almost every time because those scanners are useless and have a false positive rate so high that they should just be replaced with a random number generator) I give the TSA person specific instructions to replace their gloves for each part of the pat down. They do ... now ... but haven't in the past (public outrage has made them a lot nicer ... but their jobs should still go away and we should just go back to metal detectors like in the 90s). Also America is the only country I've flow through which still makes you take off your shoes. Fuck that nonsense.

choxi 8y ago

There aren't any quasi-monopolies in the airline industry though, are there? I've always found it interesting that the airline industry is very competitive yet airlines haven't gotten any better or cheaper in decades.

AlotOfReading 8y ago
Tickets have gotten dramatically cheaper over that period. A round trip ticket to Europe from the US costs under $300. A ticket to Australia can be had for about $600. In Europe, prices have dropped so much that planes are cost-competitive with buses between many neighboring countries. Part of this is because of reductions in services provided to basic economy fares, but ultimately even similar tickets are now about 40% cheaper than they were in the 90s. It's an amazing time to travel.
InTheArena 8y ago
This isn’t correct - since deregulation airfare has consistently gone down - 17% over the last two decades. That trend has slowed as we basically have gotten to the point where the cost per available seat mile has really can’t get any lowere without firing half the pilots and skimping on maintainence. Airplanes are being used until they can’t fly any more. Here’s a reasonable summary http://www.aei.org/publication/the-cost-of-air-travel-in-the-us-has-been-remarkably-stable-for-the-last-decade-and-17-cheaper-than-20-years-ago/ http://www.aei.org/publication/the-cost-of-air-travel-in-the...
- mediawatcher234 8y ago
  You should know that AEI (the source you linked) is not trustworthy on these issues. David Frum was fired by AEI for daring to say that Obamacare might be good, due to "donor pressure" (cite: Axios). (Notwithstanding the fact that some conservatives have tried to deny that's the reason AEI fired Frum) AEI uses motivated reasoning (you might call it propaganda) to achieve their goals - pro-business, pro-billionaire, anti-worker. Anyway. Take any pro-deregulation paper you read from AEI with a HUGE grain of salt. https://www.thenation.com/article/dont-cry-david-frum/ https://www.thenation.com/article/dont-cry-david-frum/ (This comment is /not/ politics - it's important to know the agenda behind sources we cite if we want to evaluate them fairly.)
  - InTheArena 8y ago
    Your response is absolutely politics. You don't debate any of the factual information presented - but simply cast doubt due to a difference of politics and ideology. Your assertion by pointing to a article from The Nation (the oldest progressive journal in the US, as they proudly quote) just emphasis your partisan take. Regardless, In this case - the article is correct, as facts are simply facts, and not partisan. Adjusted for inflation, travel costs roughly half of what it did at the time of deregulation. Since hearing facts from people you disagree seems to offend, I would suggest a separate source on the path of deregulation, the instability it brought, but then the ultimate success - check out Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger.
    - torstenvl 8y ago
      A newspaper, even one with a bias (as they all have), is still a more objective source than an avowedly conservative-libertarian think tank that fires people for having a different view on an issue.
      - InTheArena 8y ago
        Source A) I looked up the real cost decline of airfare over two decades, correlated it to infatuation, tracked the entire industry through multiple bankruptcies and re-capitalization stages. The numbers show that airfare has decreased by half over the last two years. Source B) Airfare is now more expensive then it ever has been! Both of these statements were literally published. The first was published by AEI. The second by the Denver Post. One was objectively true. It was not the Denver Post. There is a reason anyone who follows aviation rolls their eyes before reading any newspaper ever on the airline business.

harryh 8y ago

Well, you could fly out of JFK or LGA both massive airports with flights to essentially everywhere.

CptFribble 8y ago
For everyone west of the Hudson, going to JFK or LGA to save a little on fare is definitely Not Worth It. - If a friend/family is driving you, that's at least 2-3 extra hours of driving for them, plus extra time buffer up front for NYC traffic, multiplied by rush hour depending on flight time. - If you take train or bus it will be many, many more hours for you. - If you take cab or Uber you'll probably lose any savings on the cab fare - If you drive your own car, long-term parking is substantially more expensive, plus extra travel time the day of and traffic considerations from above car-pool case. Hard to overstate how much worse it is going to NYC airports from west of the Hudson River.

massysett 8y ago

Don’t fly: use a video conference, or just forego contact altogether. Travel by other means: drive, or take a train—-certainly viable in the Northeast. Use another airport: you said Newark, there are (at least) two other major airports in the New York area alone. People usually have multiple choices available. Certainly they have alternatives to flying United Airlines out of Newark. That someone does not like these other choices does not mean they do not exist.

tlrobinson 8y ago
Cool, I'll just video conference in to my next vacation in Hawaii.
- harryh 8y ago
  Luckily you live in SF where you can find a direct flight to Hawaii from half a dozen different airlines so this theoretical monopoly problem will never happen to you for this particular problem.
- massysett 8y ago
  Or, don’t vacation in Hawaii. You have choices whether you like them or not.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    And those choices include choosing to protest the crappy state of things and suggesting it needs to change rather than happily working around all the crappiness and accepting it as inevitable.
djsumdog 8y ago
I really hate flying in airplanes in America. I avoid them whenever possible. You cannot go through a line without being molested by the TSA. I really hate being touched, and really really hate it when people touch me below the belt and then try to touch me above the belt (serious OCD). When I do get the additional pat down (which is almost every time because those scanners are useless and have a false positive rate so high that they should just be replaced with a random number generator) I give the TSA person specific instructions to replace their gloves for each part of the pat down. They do ... now ... but haven't in the past (public outrage has made them a lot nicer ... but their jobs should still go away and we should just go back to metal detectors like in the 90s). Also America is the only country I've flow through which still makes you take off your shoes. Fuck that nonsense.