October, 1978. Jimmy Carter signs the Airline Deregulation Act removing government regulation from the Airline Industry.
The intention of the act was to remove government controls on ticket prices, routes and various restrictions to upstart air carriers.
Overnight, the United States Airline Industry became arguably the most heavily regulated, "deregulated" industry in the world.
The question i pose to you:
Should the United States Government Repeal the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, thereby Re-Regulating the Airline Industry?
Virtually the only good thing to come from De-Regulation has been the drastic reduction in ticket price for the consumer as a result of increased competetion... but at what cost?
Since deregulation, aviation professionals have seen their salaries shrink to rock bottom, slashed time and time again.
The Industry has been flooded with small, regional upstart airlines which employee under qualified, inexperienced aviators which are payed a rate comparable to the national minimum wage for their services.
Meanwhile, management and other exectuives routinely see 6 and 7 fuigure salaries with 6 and 7 figure bonuses.
We have seen numerous safety violations and fleet groundings as recently as 2007-2008 with major carriers like American and Southwest who have failed to comply with important maintenance requirements critical to flight safety.
Congress has taken steps in the right direction with the house passage of the "Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act of 2009".
The act would regulate flight time minimums, licensing requirements and and experience requirements for newly hired pilots working on the airline level. Bumping the flight time minimums up to 1,500 hours as a starting point for hiring instead of a high point... and raising licensing requirements to an "Airline Transport Pilot Certificate" instead of the regular "Commercial Pilot Certificate" for any applicant to be considered for a position.
Many of the "airline pilots" newly hired into the large, coast to coast regional airline i once worked for had less than 400 hours total flight experience, and had only entered the aviation industry 18-24 months prior to their date of employment! One applicant even had just 260 total flight hours! 10 hours more than the FAA minimum to obtain a commercial pilot's license!
Should airline salaries be standardized and regulated by the government? If so, this would make the airline industry attractive again to more experienced pilots working in the private sector. It would drive managment and executive salaries and bonuses down to more reasonable figures.
Should Airline Hiring Minimums be standardized and regulated? No more "hundred hour wonder pilots" being hired by bridge programs from aviation universities... many of todays new hire pilots have never flown any aircraft larger than a Beechcraft Baron, many of todays new hires have never experienced severe turbulence or icing conditions... many of them lack the overall experience to be contributing cockpit crew members.
Should the Government regulate airline ticket prices? No more flexing rates or fares, no more hidden baggage fees... no more reason to chose one carrier over another due to anything other than customer service and safety record.
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