Aviation deregulation

Aviation has many parallels to the nuclear power industry, and as a result there are many potential lessons to be learned from an examination of aviation deregulation. In particular, both industries ... 

Leon M. Moses and Ian Savage (1990), Aviation Deregulation and Safety Theory and Evidence, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, Vol. 24, May, pp. 171-188. 

Jeffrey N. Shane, Aviation Deregulation A Work in Progress, speech delivered to the International Aviation Club, Washington DC, November 8, 2005, published in Moving the American... 

Therefore, the experiences of the aviation industry and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with economic deregulation are potentially of interest to the nuclear power industry and the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 

Deregulation encouraged a large munber of new entrants to the aviation industry (e.g.. People Express), and triggered a large number of mergers, acquisitions, and eventually bankruptcies. 

Finally, we smnmarize the impacts of deregulation on aviation safety, and present a preliminary comparison of the U.S. aviation and nuclear power industries. 

There are several possible reasons for the favorable safety performance of the aviation industry after deregulation ... 

Overall, therefore, the experience of the aviation industry suggests that economic deregulation did not have a negative impact on the overall safety record, but that safety cannot be taken for granted after deregulation. The situation is well summarized by Lauber (1988, pg. 228), who notes that the accident statistics do not demonstrate that safety has suffered under airline deregulation— but neither do they prove that there has been no impact... Vigilance, therefore, must be continuous. ... 

In examining the impact of economic deregulation on safety in the aviation industry, the literature surveyed in the previous chapter provides an excellent starting point. In particular, two books based on interviews with airline pilots, mechanics, FAA inspectors, accident investigators, and others (O Malley, 1993 Nance, 1986) provide first-hand perspectives on experiences in the aviation industry in the years after deregulation. These books serve as a useful supplement to the statistical analyses and other empirical data stunmarized in Chapter 2, and provide detailed information based on extensive interviews. 

How well has the Federal Aviation Administration performed since deregulation ... 

One individual who had formerly worked at the FAA argued that maintenance practices had actually improved after deregulation, but that this improvement was in part regulatory driven. He described a cycle in which the airlines develop new maintenance practices as a result of operational experience, and those improved practices are eventually encoded in regulations. Thus, an innovation that may have begun at one or a few airlines is eventually mandated for all airlines. This respondent believed that the greater sophistication of preventive maintenance practices today had unquestionably helped the safety performance of the aviation industry. He cited corrosion as an area where such improvements had a significant impact. As a result of extensive efforts to understand the causes and effects of corrosion, the skins of a number of aircraft had been replaced for preventive maintenance purposes. 

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