Letter To The Editor: Protect The Airlines From Themselves

I've been around this business long enough to benefit from deregulation throughout the 1980s and see the beginning of its flaws during the commission cutting and the Internet run-up in the 1990s, and finally its abject failure in the 2000s.

Airlines are a core piece of national infrastructure, as critical as railroads, highways, waterworks and power companies to the efficient functioning of the economy. They should be regulated as the nation's utilities are.

Will mergers or Chapter 7 bankruptcies be the long-awaited panacea for the airline industry? Will the inevitable consolidation assure success for those left standing?

The answer is, of course not! There are no cost savings left to trim, no revenue left to squeeze, no synergies left to exploit. Only a radical readjustment and recalibration of the model itself is left. There is no future for airline businesses to be involved in anything other than safely and efficiently transporting humans and cargo from point A to point B. This is where their profit lies and their value to the economy is the greatest.

The airline industry does not have one cent of profit to show for over 100 years of commercial aviation. The business model of the nation's airlines makes no sense today, and maybe it never really did. In the end, the travel industry needs to speak up to protect the nation's airlines from destroying themselves. Clearly, we have learned nothing from the industry's history of failure if we allow them to repeat it—forever.

Steven W. Hewins
Vice President, Travel and Branch Operations
AAA Northern New England
Portland, Maine