Friday, December 22, 2017

Vance on Freeing the Skies

This is an article buy Laurence Vance from earlier this year on how air travel is controlled, and why it should be freed.

"According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), U.S. airlines and foreign airlines serving the United States carry about 900 million passengers per year systemwide on more than 9 million flights (domestic and international). The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) projects that the total number of enplanements will grow to 1.2 billion by 2036. More than 400,000 Americans work in the airline industry. There are more than 5,100 public-use airports in the United States. The busiest airport in the United States (in terms of passenger count) — Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson — has more than 2,700 flights arrive and depart each day. More and more Americans are leaving the ranks of those who have never flown. And that is a good thing, since, on the basis of statistics of deaths per million miles traveled, it is much, much safer to fly than to drive a car or ride a motorcycle.

"But in conjunction with the increasing number of airline flights and airline passengers and the decreasing number of crashes and fatalities associated with airline travel, airports remain under government control. Government at some level controls not only the security at airports, but the airports themselves."

Read the rest.