I may not win a lot of friends with this post … because I perceive an awful lot of fellow Americans who get so angry at the thought of government regulation that they quite literally “throw out the baby with the bathwater”, but here’s a post from my blogging friend Don Brown that I recommend.
Do you ever wonder what the difference is between the airline business of today and the airline business back when Pan Am, Eastern, Southern, Republic and Western will all in business ? I mean, besides deregulation ? I dare you to read this list, look at the dates and think.
Braniff International Airways (1928 – 1982)
Capitol Airways (1946 – 1982)
Eastern Air Lines (1926 – 1991)
Frontier Airlines (1950 – 1986)
National Airlines (1929 – 1980, to Pan American World Airways)
North Central Airlines (1939 – 1979, to Southern Airways)
Northwest Airlines (1927 – 2010, to Delta Air Lines)
Ozark Airlines (1943 – 1986, to Trans World Airlines)
Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) (1945 – 1987, to USAir)
Pan American World Airways (1927 – 1991)
Piedmont Airlines (1940 – 1989, to USAir)
Reeve Aleutian Airways (1932 – 2001)
Southern Airways (1943 – 1979, to Republic Airlines)
Texas International Airlines (1944 – 1986, to Continental Airlines)
Trans World Airlines (1930 – 2001, to American Airlines)
Western Airlines (1925 – 1987, to Delta Air Lines)Airlines that were in business for 30, 40, 50 years or more were ruined. The list tells more than that single story. Look at how many airlines started after deregulation and didn’t survive. Every single one of them took a little piece of a healthy airline with them. It is madness. Yet we continue.
Regulation wasn’t perfect. But at least people could make a living in the industry (my emphasis). And the industry could survive. Full text of Don’s post illustrating how deregulation has killed America’s airline industry.
So what has this to do with living in the Philippines, or retiring in the Philippines, or working in the Philippines as a foreigner or a Filipino?
photo credit: Ack OokA lot. Because of its geographic location, the Philippines is unusually dependent upon air travel. And the way the US is heading now )and how the US heads, so does the rest of the world), we are rapidly closing in on the apparent goal of only one airline, nationalized by the government as an “essential pubic service”, run by the lowest paid (and thus lowest common denominator management) equipped with the cheapest airplanes and manned by the most poorly paid (and thus also lowest common denominator pilots).
Think deregulation id the be all and end all of solving business issues? read the list, and think also of my comments about the stifled murmur of the passing of the giant Northwest a few days ago, and then think again.
You want the US to be number one in the world? Then let’s start by putting some number one corporate and government management back in place.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Recent Comments