Airline deregulation

Airline deregulation is the process of removing government-imposed entry and price restrictions on airlines affecting, in particular, the carriers permitted to serve specific routes. In the United States, the term usually applies to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. A new form of regulation has been developed to some extent to deal with problems such as the allocation of the limited number of slots available at airports.

As jets were integrated into the market in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the industry experienced dramatic growth. By the mid-1960s, they were carrying roughly 100 million passengers and by the mid-1970s, over 200 million Americans had traveled by air. This steady increase in air travel began placing serious strains on the ability of federal regulators to cope with the increasingly complex nature of air travel.The onset of high inflation, low economic growth, falling productivity, rising labor costs and higher fuel costs proved problematic to the airlines.

Although most industry scholars agree that the purpose behind government regulation is to create a stable industry, in the decades leading up to deregulation many airline market analysts expressed concerns with the structure of the United States' passenger air transport system. Concerns included high barriers to entry for fledgling airlines, slow government response to existing airlines entering to compete in city-pairings, and monopolistic practices by legacy airlines artificially inflating passenger ticket prices.

In order to address these growing concerns airline deregulation began in the USA in 1978. It was, and still is, a part of a sweeping experiment to ultimately reduce ticket prices and entry controls holding sway over new airline hopefuls. Airline deregulation had begun with initiatives by economist Alfred E. Kahn in the Nixon administration, carried through the Ford administration and finally, at the behest of Ted Kennedy, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.

Globally, state supported airlines are still relatively common, maintaining control over ticket prices and route entry, but many countries have since deregulated their own domestic airline markets. A similar but less laissez-faire approach has been taken by the European Union, Australia, United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Ireland and select South and Central American nations.

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