This book considers the current legal issues affecting the air transport sector incorporating recent developments in the air transport sector, including the end of certain exemptions from EU competition rules, the effect of the EU-US Open Skies Agreement, the accession of new EU Member States and the Lisbon Treaty. The book explores the differing European and US regulatory approaches to the changes in the industry and examines how airlines have remained economically efficient in what is perceived as a complex and confused regulatory environment.

An examination of the relationship between competition and the deregulation and liberalisation of the US and European air transport sectors reveals that the structure of the air transport sector has undergone a number of significant changes. A growing number of airlines are entering into horizontal and vertical cooperative arrangements and integration including franchising, codeshare agreements, alliances, ‘virtual mergers’ and in some cases, mergers with other airlines, groups of airlines or other complementary lines of business such as airports. This book considers the current legal issues affecting the air transport sector incorporating recent developments in the industry, including the end of certain exemptions from EU competition rules, the effect of the EU-US Open Skies Agreement, the accession of new EU Member States and the Lisbon Treaty. The book explores the differing European and US regulatory approaches to the changes in the industry and examines how airlines have remained economically efficient in what is perceived as a complex and confused regulatory environment. Competition and Regulation in the Airline Industry will be of particular interest to academics and students of competition law as well as EU law.

The past thirty years have witnessed a transformation of government economic intervention in broad segments of industry throughout the world. Many industries historically subject to economic price and entry controls have been largely deregulated, including natural gas, trucking, airlines, and commercial banking. However, recent concerns about market power in restructured electricity markets, airline industry instability amid chronic financial stress, and the challenges created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which allowed commercial banks to participate in investment banking, have led to calls for renewed market intervention. Economic Regulation and Its Reform collects research by a group of distinguished scholars who explore these and other issues surrounding government economic intervention. Determining the consequences of such intervention requires a careful assessment of the costs and benefits of imperfect regulation. Moreover, government interventions may take a variety of forms, from relatively nonintrusive performance-based regulations to more aggressive antitrust and competition policies and barriers to entry. This volume introduces the key issues surrounding economic regulation, provides an assessment of the economic effects of regulatory reforms over the past three decades, and examines how these insights bear on some of today’s most significant concerns in regulatory policy.

In 1938 the U.S. Government took under its wing an infant airline industry. Government agencies assumed responsibility not only for airline safety but for setting fares and determining how individual markets would be served. Forty years later, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 set in motion the economic deregulation of the industry and opened it to market competition. This study by Steven Morrison and Clifford Winston analyzes the effects of deregulation on both travelers and the airline industry. The authors find that lower fares and better service have netted travelers some $6 billion in annual benefits, while airline earnings have increased by $2.5 billion a year. Morrison and Winston expect still greater benefits once the industry has had time to adjust its capital structure to the unregulated marketplace, and they recommend specific public polices to ensure healthy competition.

Since the enactment of the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978, questions that had been at the heart of the ongoing debate about the industry for eighty years gained a new intensity: Is there enough competition among airlines to ensure that passengers do not pay excessive fares? Can an unregulated airline industry be profitable? Is air travel safe? While economic regulation provided a certain stability for both passengers and the industry, deregulation changed everything. A new fare structure emerged; travelers faced a variety of fares and travel restrictions; and the offerings changed frequently. In the last fifteen years, the airline industry's earnings have fluctuated wildly. New carriers entered the industry, but several declared bankruptcy, and Eastern, Pan Am, and Midway were liquidated. As financial pressures mounted, fears have arisen that air safety is being compromised by carriers who cut costs by skimping on maintenance and hiring inexperienced pilots. Deregulation itself became an issue with many critics calling for a return to some form of regulation. In this book, Steven A. Morrison and Clifford Winston assert that all too often public discussion of the issues of airline competition, profitability, and safety take place without a firm understanding of the facts. The policy recommendations that emerge frequently ignore the long-run evolution of the industry and its capacity to solve its own problems. This book provides a comprehensive profile of the industry as it has evolved, both before and since deregulation. The authors identify the problems the industry faces, assess their severity and their underlying causes, and indicate whether government policy can play an effective role in improving performance. They also develop a basis for understanding the industry's evolution and how the industry will eventually adapt to the unregulated economic environment. Morrison and Winston maintain that although the airline industry has not rea

The break-up of BAA and the blocked takeover of Bratislava airport by the competing Vienna airport have brought the issue of airport competition to the top of the agenda for air transport policy in Europe. Airport Competition reviews the current state of the debate and asks whether airport competition is strong enough to effectively limit market power. It provides evidence on how travellers chose an airport, thereby altering its competitive position, and on how airports compete in different regions and markets. The book also discusses the main policy implications of mergers and subsidies.