What To Do?

Our airways seem to be overcrowded and much delayed. There is a great weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. What will we do? Marion Blakey, just before she left her job as FAA administrator, wanted airlines to quit scheduling so many flights during peak traffic times. Many say the guvmint dropped the ball by not keeping the ATC system up to the needs of the airlines. There is enough finger pointing to go around and then some. I have written of this before. I don’t know how to solve the problems, but I do know what to do next. It’s called peak-period pricing. Everybody would pay more to land or take off during peak traffic periods. It's that simple. Demand for operations during peak periods is high. There is, in fact, so much demand that the supply is inadequate. When that situation exists in any market, you raise the price of the commodity that has demand exceeding supply. Voila! Buyers then decide if they want that commodity at the higher prices. Some will not, and they will lower their operations during peak periods, which is what the guvmint says it wants. How high do you raise peak-period operations? High enough to get supply and demand somewhat balanced. Does this seem like a big "duh" to you? It does to me. So, why hasn’t it been done? Near as I can tell, the guvmint ain't got the guts. Every time it is mentioned, the hoi polloi scream bloody murder and the guvmint backs down. Folks, we charge airlines to use our airports. If that is appropriate, why in the world wouldn’t it also be appropriate to charge them more to operate during peak traffic periods and less to operate during low traffic periods? Seems like a no brainer to me. We'd love to publish your comments. Please click the comment tab at the top.