Douglas & List: It shouldn't have. Perhaps I should have said "wryly" or "sadly" rather than "wisely." Alfred Kahn was the big promoter of deregulation in the Carter administration. In a retrospective PBS program on the effect of airline deregulation, Kahn said that when he argued for deregulation, he never imagined that the federal government would stop enforcing anti-trust laws. But look at the big mergers that followed. If you think that was a peculiarly Republican (Reagan) fault, look at the big oil & bank company mergers that happened during the Clinton years. But that's leading into off-topic territory. Maybe the coming thing in airlines is many airlines (from Southwest, the recent startups, and the pieces of the coming bankrupt majors), more point to point service, and a return of regulation. john On Monday, December 8, 2003, at 02:17 PM, Douglas Schnell wrote: > Okay, I'll bite. How does deregulation result in the suspension of > antitrust laws? > > -----Original Message----- > From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of > kurtzke@xxxxxx > Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 2:40 PM > To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: Can't wait until United dumps this sorry *ss airline > > BAHA and list, > [cut] > The result of deregulation (or as Alfred Kahn wisely noticed, the > federal > government halting enforcement of anti-trust laws) is that while you > used to > be able to fly United, North Central, etc. on a 737 or DC 9, you now > get to > fly a commuter airline on a commuter jet or a small turbo-prop. > [cut] > john > > Fan of enforcement of anti-trust laws John Kurtzke, C.S.C. Department of Mathematics University of Portland Portland OR 97203 503-943-7377