Re:The McDonnell Douglas-Boeing merger led to the 737 Max cr...
by kapuasuite on Monday January 06, 2020 @05:08PM
(#21973998)
Regulation and price controls aren’t the same thing, which you seem to be implying.
Re:The McDonnell Douglas-Boeing merger led to the 737 Max cr...
by pjscott on Monday January 06, 2020 @09:25PM
(#21976166)
Most regulations aren't price controls, but the historical regulations being discussed here are. In the US, routes and prices used to be decided by the Civil Aeronautics Board, removing price competition between airlines. After the price controls were dropped, air travel became a lot more affordable and profit margins got smaller. "Airline deregulation," in a US context, refers to this.
(The terminology is a bit unfortunate, but we're stuck with it for now.)
They probably are.. but it's probably not wise to consider a market dominated by three players as "competitive."
> Maybe an oligopoly with high profits and strong unions
I also don't think "more monopoly" is the sensible conclusion.
> and that it is not a simple answer.
Why is "more government regulation" not even a part of your consideration? The article itself even hints at this, before deregulation a company like Boeing could exist and be profitable, but after deregulation it becomes beholdant to Wall Street. It seems pretty clear what the solution is.