Thank Jimmy Carter for Cheap Airfare
Social media is replete with memes showing photos from the glory days of airline travel, where well-dressed travelers—think scenes from the TV show “Mad Men”—reclined in comfy seats, drank wine, and ate cooked meals. It’s a huge disconnect from our modern airline experiences, which are punctuated by surly crowds, automated systems, and long TSA lines.
The point of the social-media photos: Look at how good things were then and how awful they are now. Like all nostalgia, they contain a ring of truth but are mostly nonsense. Airline travel prior to 1978, when President Jimmy Carter spearheaded the Airline Deregulation Act, was a high-end affair. I was a teenager in the early ’70s when my parents took us to Florida. It was nice, but the flight was an enormous expense for my public school teacher Dad.
Some of the travel differences are cultural. I can’t imagine anyone 50 years ago going anywhere—let along on a cross-country trip—dressed in glorified pajamas and sandals. (As an aside, no one is stopping you from donning a stylish suit for your trip to Denver.) Cultural standards change, and not always for the better. The 9-11 terrorist attacks permanently changed the way airports treat “customers.”
But then Carter listened to Cornell University economics professor Alfred E. Kahn and eliminated a regulatory system by which the Civil Aeronautics Board determined airfares and routes. Carter, who died recently at age 100, was trying to tame inflation. There was little downward pressure on prices because bureaucrats set the rules.
Before deregulation, a cross-country flight could cost thousands of dollars (inflation adjusted) and would take all day. Afterward, travelers benefited from myriad choices that dropped prices and promoted innovation in scheduling and aircraft design.
It’s not as bougie to fly these days, but almost everyone can now afford to do it. Yet the nostalgia never ends. “The professor obviously never talked to passengers, pilots, flight crews, investors and airline executives,” author Rene Henry argued last year. “All were happy with regulation and the way things were.”
Of course, passengers, pilots, airline executives, and investors liked the old system. Passengers were usually wealthy or engaged in business travel. Airlines didn’t have to worry about upstart competitors. Investors were largely guaranteed a huge return. For the rest of Americans, well, they were stuck taking Greyhound or driving. The number of airline travelers increased from 383 million in 1970 to 4.4 billion today.
Carter is better known for some of his failures (the Iran hostage crisis, the inflationary period during his presidency, and his re-election loss). I cast my first vote for Carter in 1980, but supported Ronald Reagan in 1984, so I still remember the sense of “malaise” that defined the era. Carter also is widely remembered for his decency, the peace he brokered between Israel and Egypt, and his post-presidential charitable work.
Article from Reason.com
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