"Destroy mass transit"


Regulation has cost airlines their flexibility and forced them to a point where they are barely profitable
Sean Lynch has an unusual view of mass transportation.

Why is it that the only way to get around economically by air is via huge airliners anyway? There is only one reason: regulation. The FAA started out with the mandate to make air travel safer so that more people would be willing to fly. Now that the aviation industry has taken off, the FAA no longer feels the need to promote it, so their mandate has mutated into “safety at all costs.” The only way an FAA bureaucrat can lose his or her job is if there’s a plane crash that should have been avoided. (Note that things are different in the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which is much more like the early FAA due to the fact that they need to have an industry to regulate in order to keep their jobs.) This is also reflected in the government-run air traffic control system: it couldn’t handle more aircraft even if aviation had a renaissance.

The FAA’s “safety at all costs” mandate has basically kept airplane technology in the 70s. Any system that is to be permanently installed in the plane must be certified, an act that multiplies its price by 10, and installed by a certified aircraft mechanic. Instead of simply requiring financial responsibility in order to take off, you must basically prove that you won’t crash, which basically means new technologies take a very long time to get off the ground. If cars worked that way, everybody but the richest would be stuck taking buses and trains today. Frustration with flying around in slightly-updated 1950s technology (Cessna 172s) is one of the reasons I gave up on getting my pilot’s license; even brand new Cessna 172Rs remind one of riding around in an old Greyhound bus.

I hadn't thought about this, but I have to admit it makes sense. What would the need be for a line of TSA screeners if you could pop in an air taxi and cover a few hundred miles?

And an air taxi is a heckuva lot less of a bomb than a 767.

This appeals to me aesthetically too. Our future is in less centralization and more distribution. I was convinced years ago when I read Engines of Creation, and I was reminded recently when I read The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.

We know that the major airlines can barely compete at all. Even that is with massive government subsidies (every one of those planes can be converted to a troop carrier) and often leasing planes from other companies.

Under what conditions might we not need the TSA or the FAA?

If it is not mass transportation, is there any reason to jump through the same silly hoops?


— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - August 15, 2006 at 04:34 AM  Tag


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