Good News, Bad News in Aviation

Commercial aviation is one of the most heavily-regulated and taxed industries in the nation. Thus, some new developments that made news this week, could have an impact not only on the industry itself, but on the flying public as a whole.
First and foremost, in a major positive development, the United States and the European Union have finally approved an “open skies” agreement that should make trans-Atlantic air travel cheaper and more convenient. Under the agreement, starting next March, airlines based in any of the EU countries would be allowed to fly to any American city and U.S. carriers will be allowed to fly to any destination in the EU’s 27 countries.
Open skies will be a huge boon for the flying public, but of course there is one major opponent: labor unions. The funny thing is that since US workers are actually more productive and less expensive to hire and fire than their European counterparts, American aviation workers should benefit, but that never seems to stop labor unions from fighting economic liberalization.
Unfortunately, the news is not all good. Despite paying incredibly high taxes that subsidize wealthy passengers on private jets, commercial airline passengers will be paying even higher taxes if the airports have their way.
Needless to say, when there is as much government involvement in an industry as their is in aviation, incentives are going to be mixed up…nonetheless, we are in better shape now than we were 30 years ago thanks to of all people, President Jimmy Carter who deregulated the airlines.