Gman5000

What's Really Wrong With The Airline Industry - And Can It Be Fixed?

Re-regulate!? How about trying deregulation.....compl... I'm unaware of anything taxed higher than airfare (higher than liquor, tobacco or any other "sin" tax), and not too much that is regulated any more than airlines currently are. The "deregulation" legislation was a move toward deregulation; it wasn't deregulation by itself. And why re-regulate anyway? The ATC is regulated, and look at the debacle that has turned out to be over the past two administrations. They've been talking about the "next-gen" ATC system since 1996, and haven't done a thing toward actually implementing it. They're still talking about it!

What's Really Wrong With The Airline Industry - And Can It Be Fixed?

Good article. A few misconceptions about Southwest though.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, they fly 2 aircraft types: 737-300/500 ("737 Classics") and 737-700 ("737 Next Gen"). Just because both types have "737" in the name doesn't mean they're the same type, any more than a 2008 Corvette shares anything other than name with a 1972 Corvette.

Southwest also is heavily unionized and has high labor costs, it's just that their management works WITH their unions to get the highest productivity out of their employees - and with a smile.

Southwest connects a lot more traffic than people think. Go sit at BWI any afternoon and watch how many pax are connecting. And while conventional wisdom is that Southwest is a "point-to-point" carrier, they have several stations that can be called hubs by anyone's definition of the word.

Southwest is a profitable fuel speculation company, that happens to also run a money-losing airline.

Still, a great article that is very well researched.