Since airlines were deregulated, shareholders, management and workers, already well organized, have suffered severe, sometimes catastrophic losses, while the benefits have been spread among unorganized consumers and the investors and managers of new entrant airlines, which themselves have had a...

The economic theory of regulation posits that regulation is a service offered by self-regarding government officials to well-organized interests at the expense of the general public. Airline regulation has often been cited as a classic example, in which a naturally competitive industry was...