The Economic Effects of Airline Deregulation


Book Description

In 1938 the U.S. Government took under its wing an infant airline industry. Government agencies assumed responsibility not only for airline safety but for setting fares and determining how individual markets would be served. Forty years later, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 set in motion the economic deregulation of the industry and opened it to market competition. This study by Steven Morrison and Clifford Winston analyzes the effects of deregulation on both travelers and the airline industry. The authors find that lower fares and better service have netted travelers some $6 billion in annual benefits, while airline earnings have increased by $2.5 billion a year. Morrison and Winston expect still greater benefits once the industry has had time to adjust its capital structure to the unregulated marketplace, and they recommend specific public polices to ensure healthy competition.




Deregulating the Airlines


Book Description




Deregulation and the Airline Business in Europe


Book Description

Almost 117 million passengers flew on Europe's low cost airlines in 2006. This statistic would have seemed beyond belief in the mid-1980s when air transport was a heavily regulated sphere. This book examines the deregulation which has taken place since then and in particular looks at the single most important reprurcussion of the deregulation of Europe's skies - the rise of the low cost airline. Sean Barret has been involved in the debates surrounding this right from the start and is well placed to provide a scholarly study of the issue. The book spends much time looking at the success of Ryanair in this period - this provides the perfect case study given the dominant role that the company has taken up over recent years.




Economic Regulation and Its Reform


Book Description

The past thirty years have witnessed a transformation of government economic intervention in broad segments of industry throughout the world. Many industries historically subject to economic price and entry controls have been largely deregulated, including natural gas, trucking, airlines, and commercial banking. However, recent concerns about market power in restructured electricity markets, airline industry instability amid chronic financial stress, and the challenges created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which allowed commercial banks to participate in investment banking, have led to calls for renewed market intervention. Economic Regulation and Its Reform collects research by a group of distinguished scholars who explore these and other issues surrounding government economic intervention. Determining the consequences of such intervention requires a careful assessment of the costs and benefits of imperfect regulation. Moreover, government interventions may take a variety of forms, from relatively nonintrusive performance-based regulations to more aggressive antitrust and competition policies and barriers to entry. This volume introduces the key issues surrounding economic regulation, provides an assessment of the economic effects of regulatory reforms over the past three decades, and examines how these insights bear on some of today’s most significant concerns in regulatory policy.




Last Exit


Book Description

"Proposes experiments in deregulating and privatizing the country's transportation systems to rid them of inefficiencies and significantly improve their performance in moving goods and people around the United States; the book covers roads, airports and airport traffic control, mass transit, intercity buses and railway networks"--Provided by publisher.




Winds of Change


Book Description

Commercial aviation was one of the first industries affected by the controversial regulatory reforms that began in the 1970s. Beginning in 1975, administrative reforms of the Civil Aeronautics Board gave carriers greater freedom in discounting prices and serving new markets. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 removed restrictions on entry, pricing, and routes. Still unresolved in policy and practice, however, is the question of the appropriate role of government. In the interest of informing the public debate about deregulation, the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board convened a committee of 15 experts to review air passenger service and safety since deregulation. The findings of the committee and its recommendations are presented in this report.




The Airport Business


Book Description

Placing the airport business within a conceptual framework, the author examines the major global issues that confront it and offers solutions to the economic and financial difficulties likely to arise in the future.




Deregulating Desire


Book Description

In 1975, National Airlines was shut down for 127 days when flight attendants went on strike to protest long hours and low pay. Activists at National and many other U.S. airlines sought to win political power and material resources for people who live beyond the boundary of the traditional family. In Deregulating Desire, Ryan Patrick Murphy, a former flight attendant himself, chronicles the efforts of single women, unmarried parents, lesbians and gay men, as well as same-sex couples to make the airline industry a crucible for social change in the decades after 1970. Murphy situates the flight attendant union movement in the history of debates about family and work. Each chapter offers an economic and a cultural analysis to show how the workplace has been the primary venue to enact feminist and LGBTQ politics. From the political economic consequences of activism to the dynamics that facilitated the rise of what Murphy calls the “family values economy” to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, Deregulating Desire emphasizes the enduring importance of social justice for flight attendants in the twenty-first century.




Airline Deregulation and Laissez-Faire Mythology


Book Description

Airline deregulation is a failure, conclude Professors Dempsey and Goetz. They assault the conventional wisdom in this provocative book, finding that the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, championed by a profound political movement which also advocated the deregulation of the bus, trucking, rail, and pipeline industries, failed to achieve the promises of its proponents. Only now is the full impact of deregulation being felt. Airline deregulation has resulted in unprecedented industry concentration, miserable service, a deterioration in labor-management relations, a narrower margin of safety, and higher prices for the consumer. This comprehensive book begins by exploring the strategy, tactics, and egos of the major airline robber barons, including Frank Lorenzo and Carl Icahn. In separate chapters, the strengths, weaknesses, and corporate cultures of each of the major airlines are evaluated. Part Two assesses the political, economic, and social justifications for New Deal regulation of aviation, and its deregulation in the late 1970s. Part Three then addresses the major consequences of deregulation in chapters on concentration, pricing, service, and safety, and Part Four advances a legislative agenda for solving the problems that have emerged. Professors Dempsey and Goetz advocate a middle course of responsible government supervision between the dead hand of regulation of the 1930s and the contemporary evil of market Darwinism. The book will be of particular interest to airline and airport industry executives, government officials, and students and scholars in public policy, economics, business, political science, and transportation.




Liberalization in Aviation


Book Description

The last few decades have witnessed substantial liberalization trends in various industries and countries. Starting with the deregulation of the US airline industry in 1978, regulatory restructuring took place in further network industries such as telecommunications, electricity or railways in various countries around the world. Although most of the liberalization movements were initially triggered by the worrying performances of the respective regulatory frameworks, increases in competition and corresponding improvements in allocative and productive efficiency were typically associated with the respective liberalization efforts. From an academic perspective, the transition from regulated industries to liberalized industries has attracted a substantial amount of research reflected in many books and research articles which can be distilled to three main questions: (1) What are the forces that have given rise to regulatory reform? (2) What is the structure of the regulatory change which has occurred to date and is likely to occur in the immediate future? (3) What have been the effects on industry efficiency, prices and profits of the reforms which have occurred to date? Liberalization in Aviation brings together renowned academics and practitioners from around the world to address all three questions and draw policy conclusions. The book is divided into five sections, in turn dealing with aspects of competition in various liberalized markets, the emergence and growth of low-cost carriers, horizontal mergers and alliances, infrastructures, and concluding with economic assessments of liberalization steps so far and proposed steps in the future.