[Austin Willard Wright]

If your theory is true, the airlines should have responded to deregulation in the 1970s by raising ticket prices but they didn't. Why not? Competition (including lifting the prohibition on foreign competion) is the way to bring lower prices. One could also ask why the unsubsidized Federal Express is able to undercut the heavily subsidized U.S. postal service.

One should also mention that airport privatization (including the outmoded traffic control system) will also attract new business by making airports more efficient and safer. Heathrow is an excellent example of a successful, relatively secure and quite efficient privatized airport.

[hobbes1]

But you seem to posit from a bottomless price theory. the simple fact of the matrter is, The Price of Jet Fuel, puts a definitive bottom on Airline ticket prices....

[Alberta's Child]

As far as I know, Stewart International Airport in Orange County, New York is the only major airport in the U.S. that is privately-owned. I'm not sure how "profitable" it is, but I'm willing to bet that the British company that purchased it picked it up for peanuts because it was a de-commissioned Air Force base.

[sinkspur]

One could also ask why the unsubsidized Federal Express is able to undercut the heavily subsidized U.S. postal service.

FedEx uses the heavily subsidized airport system. Amtrak has to maintain all of its own infrastructure; none of the airlines put a thin dime into maintaining runways, airport terminals, or air traffic control.

Amtrak will never be able to operate profitably, nor does any other passenger railroad system in the entire world.

Who's going to buy the baggage screening machines mandated by the government? Not the airlines, that's for sure.