New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | January 3, 2006

Claims of executive power unbounded, a low-fare airline is quickly grounded, and when Ukraine can't pass gas Europe's problems are compounded—in the new Reason Express.

Comments

Thomas Paine's Goiter|1.3.06 @ 2:03PM|#

Mothereffer.

I really liked Indy Air too. I recently made it my airline of choice at the office.

SONOFA

|1.3.06 @ 2:07PM|#

Re Independent Air: A few years ago, I had the opportunity to take a class from Dr. Paul Dempsey (whom I believe has been referenced in past Reason articles) on the subject of airline business and law. Dempsey stated that there are three types of business that everyone thinks they can run: (1) a restaurant; (2) a professional sports team; and (3) an airline. That's why people are able to repeatedly sucker investors into funding start-up airlines that any objective analysis would show have no hope of succeeding in the long run.

|1.3.06 @ 3:22PM|#

My brother-in-law is an airplane mechanic and he'll be the first to tell you how ridiculous the FAA is. Most of the delays are caused by paperwork. A 10 minute job can easily take an extra hour filling out forms and whatnot. I can scarcely imagine the regulatory nightmare that running a whole airline must be. Combine that with the normal yet huge business expenses of running an airline and it's not surprising that it's so difficult. Fortunately, airlines can cut costs by not having bathrooms on their planes since there's no law against it.

Restaurants and sports teams I get, but I'm surprised that airlines are on that list.

|1.3.06 @ 3:52PM|#

From what I read, they got hit badly by rising fuel costs. Plus they seemed to have a rather odd list of cities served that wouldn't seem profitable to me.

|1.3.06 @ 10:31PM|#

I'm inordinately fond of the story about the Florida high school kid who took off to Iraq.