Why Flying Is Miserable, Ganesh Sitaraman
Why Flying Is Miserable, Ganesh Sitaraman
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Why Flying Is Miserable
And How to Fix It

Author: Ganesh Sitaraman

Narrator: Chris Henry Coffey

Unabridged: 4 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/14/2023


Synopsis

Why are the airlines always in a crisis?

Everyone has a horror story about air travel—cancellations, delays, lost baggage, tiny seats, poor service. In this day and age, there is no reason that flying should be this bad. In Why Flying Is Miserable, Ganesh Sitaraman, a law professor and policy expert, explains how this happened: It was a conscious choice made by Washington in the 1970s to roll back many forms of regulation that began during the New Deal, in the name of unimpeded capitalism and more competition. Today, the industry is an oligopoly, with only four too-big-to-fail airlines that have received billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts and still can’t offer reliable service.

Miserable air travel is the perfect symbol of the type of unregulated capitalism that America has unleashed. But there are ways to fix airlines—and, by extension, many other sectors of industry—because, after a half-century run, people are sick and tired of the turbulence that deregulation has brought to our economy.

About The Author

Ganesh Sitaraman is a law professor and the director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Political Economy and Regulation. He is the author of several books, including The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution and The Great Democracy. Sitaraman serves on the board of The American Prospect, and is a member of the FAA's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee. He was previously a senior advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren on her presidential campaign. He lives in Nashville, TN.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on March 02, 2024

Either I'm just easily influenced and airline regulation is the latest thing I've been radicalized about, or this genuinely was a well-researched and conducted argument. Or maybe both! This book walks through the earliest years of commercial flight (had no idea the Post Office was so involved those e......more

Goodreads review by David on August 05, 2023

An excellent and transgressive short history of airline regulation, from the rise of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the 1930s to deregulation in the 1970s. There has been a fortress placed around this whole topic, insisting that regulation was bad and deregulation was good for everyone involved. Sit......more

Goodreads review by Kyle on February 24, 2025

A straightforward policy briefing on the challenges of flying as an industry and the inherent tradeoffs among complete regulation, partial regulation, and lack of any regulation. In the current state, we - the consumers - are not protected from the free entry type competition of vastly competitive in......more

Goodreads review by Michelle on January 01, 2025

I read this for book club at work. So boring.......more

Goodreads review by David on December 02, 2023

Even if you disagree with the author, you will at least agree that he has thought through the problem and his proposed solutions. It doesn’t mean he has thought through it thoroughly, but the book is significantly better than other public policy proposal books in that his proposals are more detailed......more