There’s been a slew of YouTube videos and stories lately showing how chaotic things have gotten when flying the friendly skies. Whether it’s this family who just wanted to bring a birthday cake on board, this man defending a mother crying over her baby and stroller, or this woman forced to urinate in a cup on board a plane, it seems like customers are often rude — but airline personnel even more so. Due to heavy regulations, there are only a few airlines in business. They monopolize the industry and can basically do whatever they want like a fraternity hazing gone nuts. It’s time that changed.
The airline industry, and the way it’s devolved, is a simple product of an overregulated market gone awry. The FAA dominates the industry and increased regulations to the point where few companies have the funds to operate under that pressure. Only a few major airlines function at capacity, thus customers are forced to purchase tickets boarding a plane they may not want to.
Worse, airlines know this. What are you going to do, walk to China? So there’s no real incentive for them to be professional and courteous, let alone affordable — that is, until the birth of the cell phone video.
In the last few months, we’ve seen some of the rude, unprofessional, and downright odd happenings in the sky. In some cases, viewers might have sided with customers thrown off the plane. In others, it might appear that customers bought the airline ticket and should have abided by the airline’s rules and regulations. When David Dao refused to move from his airplane seat, citing a need to return home to patients, United forcefully dragged him, causing a riot.
Mike Rowe, all-American male and common sense guy, sided with the airlines because anarchy in the sky is the last thing we need:
Does that mean he deserved a beating? Of course not. But it doesn’t mean he’s innocent. Like the airline, Dr. Dao had options. He had recourse. He could have deplaned and pled his case to the gate agent. But he didn’t. He chose resistance. That was dumb. United chose confrontation. That was dumber. Now, here we are. Dumb and Dumber.
While Rowe makes an excellent point, there are two sides to this coin. While one side belongs to the customers, who seem to be becoming more belligerent as time goes on, the other belongs to the airlines, specifically FAA regulations, which have all but stopped growth in this industry.
The FAA allows airlines to create a hub system, dominating certain cities. So if you want to fly from Denver, you are likely going to use United. While safety should be paramount, regulations are tight enough few want to risk creating a new airline, decreasing competition.
The other issue is service fees. Remember that the airlines introduced a fuel surcharge because gas prices got so high under Obama? Well, prices have dropped but the surcharge has not gone away.
Just like the Airline Deregulation Act aided in reducing ticket prices, further deregulation would allow for increased competition and ultimately better customer service. If there was more competition, airlines would start to cater to customers more and service would improve. Southwest was able to capitalize on this and it made them an industry leader.
In a free market economy, competition always paves the way to improvement, just as necessity is the mother of invention. If we want airlines to stop acting like a fraternity gone wild, it’s time we stopped rewarding the ones who haze us with our business. Instead, let’s open up the market to more competition and make the skies friendly again.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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