05-28-2022, 01:35 PM
(05-28-2022, 10:05 AM)ac3r Wrote: I'm no capitalist but if the free market is free, then anyone should be allowed to operate a business and the best ones will prevail over the others.
Unfettered capitalism, especially in high start-up cost industries, is terrible for consumers. The idea that a completely free market is automatically good for consumers is nonsense propaganda that many people try to push. And, for the record, I would call myself a capitalist!
The exclusivity offer is both time-limited (3 years?) and limited to particular routes. Further, it was an open offer to all airlines at a time when almost nobody was flying commercial routes here and it took years before anyone took them up on it. The free market was available to everyone.
And further, there are are a ton of viable destinations that YKF doesn’t have flights to that SWOOP could service and do just as well as Flair. The fact that they don’t want to us another clue that they don’t actually care about consumers.
There are many reasons the article angers me, but one is that the airport spent years getting shit on for not attracting airlines and requiring subsidies. Then once they’ve achieved some success, people turn around and shit on them for one part of making that success happen. And while I’m sure everyone involved is used to taking crap I don’t have to like seeing it.