US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

The airline industry is a good example of an "open" market that is really anything but. It is effectively an state-supported oligopoly. Airlines have split up every major market, usually with very little competition amongst themselves, and then have a government bailout backstop if things go wrong (this include things like favorable bankruptcy laws that let them get out of wage commitments). This is without even getting into the unholy public-private airport situation.

The answer is actual competition with some reasonable passenger protections.

Let foreign carriers compete here (9th freedom rights). No bailouts for failed operations or even unusual circumstances like covid.

The bailouts for unusual circumstances are a really interesting case. The "unusual circumstances" tend to be perfect for industry consolidation, which is normally (and rightly) viewed with at least some skepticism, but tends to get a pass during unusual circumstances as a matter of survival. In no small part this is driven by the desire not to cause thousands of people to be laid off with no equivalent pay opportunities in sight.

The PPP program turned out to be a widely abused transfer of wealth from taxpayers to capitalists, yes. But I actually think in general that bailouts, especially for smaller industry players, are an important tool for preventing industry consolidation, which causes generational-scale harm that is difficult to reverse or even remediate.

I think what need to happen is that it should be much easier to pierce the corporate veil in cases of obvious negligence in planning that leads to being unprepared for a predictable event. And of course putting an end to PE-style "corporate raiding" behavior that really just amounts to embezzlement. Imagine an economy in which the owners, directors, and chief executives of corporation are, as individuals, required to uphold some level of fiduciary duty to their customers. The economy might look very different in that case.

>The answer is actual competition

It's hard to see how that can happen when politicians take money from the rent-seekers who benefit from the status quo. "Competition is for losers", says Peter Thiel, so buy yourself a state-sanctioned monopoly (like Palantir).

> The answer is actual competition with some reasonable passenger protections.

This is physically impossible. Airplanes require airports and airports only have so much space they can dedicate to flights.

An extreme example of this is the Ronald Reagan airport. How could you possibly get more competition there when it cannot grow and it's surrounded by the urban area?

That's like saying the solution to your water company monopoly is more competition. You can't bury more water lines for different companies. Someone has to own the existing lines.

To be pedantic, I'm sure you "can", but the effort and political sway to do so for what may not even be profitable is humongous.

That was pretty much Google fiber in a nutshell last decade. They existing cable lines eventually pushed Google out of it.

Fiber optics is getting multiple providers in several markets, if not many. They do bury/lift multiple lines, even in more rural areas.

I think the biggest issue with airlines is they act as only an airline. The first company to realize they are a transportation company and can get you door to door will be great.

E.g. an airline that can seamlessly get you to/from the airport via a local premium/private transit line that can get you to your home or destination.

I think that's what you get with a first class ticket (never experienced it myself).

I've worked at burying fiber. It's a LOT easier to place and bury vs a water line. Fiber lines are a lot smaller and they don't have to be trenched in. That means you can run a fiber line under driveways without doing almost any damage. You can also trench in fiber lines in a fairly non-destructive manner that mostly just leaves a small scar in the grass.

Water lines can't be put in that way because PVC pipe isn't flexable. Ditto for gas.

That's the reason you might see more ISP competition and lines placed but you aren't seeing competition with your sewage or water provider.

If you've ever seen a company do water line work, you know they had to dig up and repave every single driveway the line was buried under. It also takes a lot longer time.

Hence the reason I talked about water providers and not fiber providers. You have similar problems putting in new waterlines as you would expanding an airport (only much smaller and easier to overcome).

>I think the biggest issue with airlines is they act as only an airline. The first company to realize they are a transportation company and can get you door to door will be great.

Well American Airlines is already doing this, you book a ticket and on some routes they transport you via a bus instead of a plane....still sucks.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GR4h6d4sa8