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.
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Mothereffer.
I really liked Indy Air too. I recently made it my airline of
choice at the office.
SONOFA
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.
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.
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.
I'm inordinately fond of the story about the Florida high school kid who took off to Iraq.
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