The problem here is the regulatory body basically punted and let the company regulate themselves. Like that was going to work...
Also why I drive to work every day instead of some safer form of transportation.
I strongly disagree with your strong disagree.
By 1990 alone inflation adjusted fares had fallen 30% since deregulation. They've fallen more since.
"Airline revenue per passenger mile has declined from an inflation-adjusted 33.3 cents in 1974, to 13 cents in the first half of 2010. In 1974 the cheapest round-trip New York-Los Angeles flight (in inflation-adjusted dollars) that regulators would allow: $1,442. Today one can fly that same route for $268." (https://www.bloomberg.com/businessweek/bwdaily/dnflash/conte...)
Air travel in the US averages 0.2 deaths per 10 billion passenger-miles.
Driving is 150 deaths per 10B P-M.
Driving across a small town is more likely to kill you than flying across the country.
I also do not agree with the premise that imposing stricter regulation would "double" the cost of tickets. Airline tickets have come down in price for MANY reasons, not just less regulation.
No, pardon me, I meant planes and their maintenance. Airlines setting fares and competing for slots is fine.
Planes and their maintenance are already strictly regulated in the US. Note that the two crashes were not of planes flown by US carriers. The first crash (Lion Air) had maintenance irregularities that contributed to it.
MCAS, however, is not a maintenance failure but a design failure. "More regulation" is not really a good description of what is needed to prevent future design failures like that. What is needed is regulation that can't be outsourced to the companies being regulated, as the FAA was doing.
The regulations worked fine and weren’t super expensive, until the FAA decided to outsource its regulations to the very companies it was supposed to regulate (Boeing).
