----- Original Message -----=20 From: "John Kurtzke" <kurtzke@xxxxxx> To: <AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 2:17 PM Subject: Re: Re-regulate Again (John Kurtzke) > Al, > I believe monopolies hurt customers, workers, businesses, or any > combination of those. Alfred Kahn was interviewed on a PBS program > (Frontline?) a few years ago about deregulation, which he had pushed = in > the Carter Administration. Kahn said that he had never imagained that = the > government would stop enforcing the anti-trust laws. >=20 > I think that David Ross hit the nail on the head about the Republic - > Northwest merger; in fact, Detroit also became a Northwest city as = well as > Minneapolis. I am not sure what US air picked up in the South from its > "merger" (takeover) of Piedmont, but in the Midwest, it removed an = airline > competing with US Air and put lots of people out of work in Dayton, = the > Piedmont hub. (Nick Laflamme mentioned reduced competition in this = case > too). >=20 > I was probably wrong about Delta - Western, although, when the merger = took > place, Western was just beginning to fly into Dulles from Western's > hub in Salt Lake. (I think :-) ). >=20 > There were stupid mergers as well, but I don't think Congress should > legilate against stupidity, except when it harms the public interest. = Pan > Am - National was stupid -- yes, the route systems did not overlap, > National could have helped Pan Am, etc, etc, but both were sick = airlines. >=20 > The most insiduous result of deregulation was that airlines felt they = had > to go national. They did this with hub systems. Big hubs and security > screening made it hard to transfer from one airline to another, which > increased the pressure to go national. This statement I whole heartedly agree with. The trend among all = airlines was to go national. It appears the industry wanted to copy = United route structures and success. Each airline you spoke to was a = regional or niche airline. None approached UAL or American in any = fashion. It appeared at the time the easiest way to achieve that goal. = When these mergers started I predicted we would end up with five major = airlines. It sounds as though your biggest problem was hubbing rather = that mergers. United started hubbing in the 70's (they called it the = bank system). The theory behind hubbing was to keep the traffic not = share it with anyone. I'm not defending the mergers. At the time it = seemed that all filled the need of the merger partner with an absolute = minimum of route overlap. The mergers in most all instances didn't = work. It's like bringing two women into your house that are set in = their ways and both are hard headed and envious. I do appreciate your = views. Al