Yet, the potential cost of this legislation to air carriers is not the main issue. More importantly, since this legislation would blanket the spectrum of domestic carriers with its legal requirements, it can be reasonably expected that all carriers would simply raise passenger fares to recover the cost of compliance. And so it must be stressed that passengers would simply pay for the cost of a level of service which they have specifically declined in the past by patronizing ever-lower air fares. In effect, the benefits of so called ‘deregulated’ air carrier service would be squelched through … regulation.

But, there’s a bigger problem.

V1 stresses that passenger inconvenience and air carrier passenger-handling is merely a symptom of something much larger than what is being addressed through passenger rights legislation. That ‘something’ is that the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was flawed. The Act merely deregulated air carrier seat and freight capacity while leaving the federal resources required for generating air transportation throughput fully regulated. So, while customer fares for seat and freight capacity seek a free-market equilibrium (as they should), the federal taxes which are collected on this consumption do not adequately govern demand for federal aviation resources, and neither do they provide adequate supply.

In the end, the core problem emerges as one in which the nimble free-market provision of seat and freight capacity over-consumes the unresponsive federal provision of air traffic control capacity. Instead of chasing after band aid legislation to fix the symptoms of this problem, V1 recommends a systemic fix. Deregulate ATC, and allow all resources which are consumed for the generation of air travel to assume market-based equilibrium. This would impart a cost and revenue incentive on privatized ATC providers to minimize delays across the nation. Passenger productivity and satisfaction with air travel would rise. The entire nation would enjoy the economic benefits of an air transportation system which delivers on its potential. For more information on this effort, readers are invited to visit the V1 Blog at http://velocity1llc.wordpress.com.