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Sounds like the industry is extremely efficient. Why would we want to turn this into regulated utilities?
by wat10000 6mo ago
Sounds like the industry is extremely efficient. Why would we want to turn this into regulated utilities?
- ajkjk 6mo agosounds like it's not efficient at all? it's barely functional as a business and is only surviving on grifty addons?
- avarun 6mo agoThis is a textbook case of competition pushing profits down to 0. That's an ideal case scenario. Why would you want to change this?
- chadgpt1 6mo ago[dead]
- thesuitonym 6mo agoMaybe they would have been more profitable if they weren't funneling $1 million every year into their CEO's pocket?
- wat10000 6mo agoThey were losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
- hakfoo 6mo agoBecause at the end of the day, "profits down to 0" also means things like "reserve capacity down to 0", "safety margins down to 0", and "any aspect of the experience that makes it less miserable than being crammed into the cargo pen down to 0". A modest regulated profit could result in a healthier industry-- one where the least economic hiccup doesn't cause carriers to shut down with limited notice, where they can afford to not play chicken with hours-of-service laws and maintenance standards, and where people don't get promotions for trying to sell the idea of standing-room tickets.
- wat10000 6mo agoThe industry is extremely safe. Neither of the two recent fatal accidents involved safety lapses by the airlines and air travel is so safe as to be difficult to measure. I don’t understand how higher profits would translate to a less miserable experience. Nice experiences are available now! You just have to pay for them. All regulation would do is remove the option of not paying for them. If you want to pay more for a better experience, nothing is stopping you now. The fact that the airline that just went under was one of the most miserable, most nickel-and-diming ones out there suggests that this isn’t actually the way to compete, and the market does allow for some room at the bottom there.
- ajkjk 6mo agoBecause of the "grifty addons" part. Is that not obvious? This situation is not ideal.
- emmelaich 6mo ago"Perfect efficiency comes at the point of collapse" Don't know where I read that, but it seems apropos.
- tt24 6mo agoGood? It’s dirt cheap
- victorbjorklund 6mo agoIt’s perfectly competitive. There is no rent seeking on the core.
- wat10000 6mo agoIt’s highly functional. It’s barely profitable. That’s good for the customers.
- lazyasciiart 6mo agoBecause efficiency is not the end goal of life.
- victorbjorklund 6mo agoSo the end goal is making poor people pay more for the flights home on holidays so that the investors can have higher returns?
- lazyasciiart 6mo agoThe end goal is not letting the airline cancel the ticket of the lowest paid passenger when they overbook, for one example. An efficient market simply doesn't serve the people who can't pay enough to be attractive customers: it makes poor people either pay more or not fly. It can also change those rules on the fly by e.g. cancelling flights without enough passengers booked, or selecting the person with the lowest value customer profile to bump when a flight is overbooked. Regulations are usually introduced when people realize that the very efficient corporate choice like 'cancel underbooked flights, sell as many tickets as we can for each flight and bump the lowest paying passengers at boarding time' really screws over passengers. In the US, this is accompanied by giant waterfalls of public money being spent on the infrastructure required by airlines to cover the overhead that is mandated, like airports and air traffic controllers.
- wat10000 6mo agoHow about transportation?