'Re-legislation Now'

I suggest that the National Business Travel Association Legislative Committee (and all the other committees with an invested interest) consider the potential death of the airline industry (as we know it) resulting from airline management's inability to successfully link air seat costs to the price of aviation fuel. We are faced with slow increases and non-catch-up methodology of pricing. We hear that market competition prevents the needed price to fuel cost methodology required to keep the nation's carriers in the air. The only outcome of this can be a new list of bankruptcies, lost service and reduced capacity and ultimately foreign ownership of this industry. All economic indicators would suggest this is a coming doom. The suggestion that any form of real resolve might exist in alternative mechanisms like 'nickel and dime' fees for water, etc. is absurd.

 

We need re-legislation of this industry now to prevent the ultimate loss of our aviation infrastructure, route networks and air services that we have enjoyed. This nation seems to have forgotten that the airline industry is a second line of defense and an emergency population movement vehicle for the U.S. This was the very reason for the existence of the Civil Aeronautics Board--to control/protect routes, profitability and structure of the aviation backbone of this great nation. Through the institution of free-market pricing and the resulting deregulation of the aviation industry, we have seen a great many airlines come and go, but we have not seen excellent airline management decisions surface.  We now need to have the U.S. government legislate and regulate the frequency and capacity of service and insure that air is priced against a standard benchmark of aviation fuel. It would seem, at this stage of the game, this may be the only remaining tool to assure what we desire.