LA -

Wow, I made enough typos in that last post.  Glad I don't have to earn a living as a secretary - I'd starve.

I am a little harsh about airline deregulation.  I could go on for pages about it, as aviation is dear to my heart and soul, as I've been in the industry since college.

Dereg did lower fares, but so did a lot of other factors too.

Historically, jet engines are real fuel guzzlers compared to piston engines.  In the 1970s and early 80s, most airliners burned fuel by the buckets.  The old DC-9, Boeing 727, L-1011, early 747and DC-8 airplanes that made up the lion's share of the fleet were very inefficient.  When the first Arab oil embargo hit in the early 1970s, and fuel prices went thru the roof, the airline industry was caught flat footed.  Operational costs of those old airplanes tripled overnight.

So fares were allowed, by the Civil Aeronautics Board, the old regulatory agency, to go sky high to compensate.  Airline travel became very expensive.

Dereg was seen as a way to end the subsidy I mentioned where travelers on profitable routes were carrying the costs of those very unprofitable routes to small cities.  I recall 100 seat 727s in those days with 20 people on board going to small cities.

As a new generation of airliners were designed and built to be far more fuel efficient, costs came down some.  So the political winds demanded that these regulated, high fares be able to float in the world of dereg.  That worked.  Suddenly you saw the emergence of carriers like Southwest, Air Tran, Muse, Peoples Express, and others who cherry picked profitable routes away from the old majors like United and TWA, and set fares as they pleased, under cutting the old majors.

The only way the old carriers could compete was to eliminate the frills we used to have - hot meals in coach class, flight attendants who really cared if you were comfortable, etc.  And, to eliminate flying those unprofitable routes to smaller markets.

So now we have a system where all people want is transportation at the lowest possible cost.  Not bad for the economy and for passengers in general - grandma can now afford to fly across the country to see her kids and grandkids at Christmas, when she could not afford such a trip before dereg.

The casualties were the employees of the old major airlines, as baggage handlers, flight attendants, mechanics and especially pilots had to give up their very cushy pay scales to enable their companies to compete with the new upstarts who were paying far less for labor.  At this point in history, there was a pilot glut, as most of the large numbers of Vietnam era military pilots were getting out of the service and looking for airline jobs.  

Also, all of the old airplanes I mentioned earlier had 3 person flight crews - a captain, a first officer, and a flight engineer.  The new generation of modern airplanes cut that down to just 2 pilots; eliminating the FE position.  Even a brand new 747, carrying nearly 500 passengers, has only 2 people up front.

What else happened was the emergence of a whole new class of airline - the regional commuter.  I won't begin to take your time going into that now, except to say - look at their abysmal safety record.  Literally, 25 year old pilots with 1500 hours total time are sitting in the front seat.

Of course, when I was 25, I was the hottest pilot in my squadron <g>.  But I was in the airplane with just a back seater, so I could only kill the two of us, not 100 passengers.  Thankfully, in 45 years of flying, I've never put a scratch on an airplane.

That is correct.

And too, the controllers were saddled with way too much mandatory overtime. It was unsafe.

... I'd vote for ya' Bill... ...

I new a guy who didn't know how many states were in the union,And he became president of the USA.

Serowbot wrote on 10/13/10 at 19:11:17:

I would too,but Bill is just not common enough.

Excuse me? You just cant handle being wrong, can you? Youre gonna try to turn it into something else to try to pretend you were right all along, well, You WERENT, so go pout & get over it.