Airlines Ask FAA To Regulate Competitor Out of Business

Published

1 year ago

October 12, 2023

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Air travel is never particularly glamorous, but nowadayswith long lines, cramped seats, and the larger prospect of flight cancellationsit feels less appealing than ever. A recent survey by the travel site Expedia found that 55 percent of Americans find commercial flight “more daunting than filing taxes or visiting the dentist.”

One smaller airline is thriving by giving customers a better experience at a price comparable to the major carriers’. Naturally, the larger companies are petitioning the federal government to shut it down.

Rather than big commercial jets flying out of major airports, the regional airline JSX flies smaller planes that look like private jets out of smaller private terminals. Most flights, like its popular Burbank to Las Vegas route, last only a couple of hours, though it also offers a flight from Miami to New York.

At the smaller terminals, passengers walk right out onto the tarmac to board the plane and don’t have to go through Transportation Security Agency (TSA) checkpoints. In fact, JSX checks passengers against the TSA pre-check database ahead of time and brags that travelers can show up as little as 20 minutes before departure. This saves more than just time: Passengers on flights that require TSA checkpoints pay for them with a per-ticket fee. JSX fares run from $300 to $800, roughly equivalent to a commercial flight and cheaper than a first-class ticket.

JSX gets away with this by taking advantage of a loophole in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations: Flights with 30 or fewer passenger seats can be classified as “public charters” and therefore aren’t subject to the same rules. The carrier won FAA approval to operate as a public charter in 2016; its original fleet consisted of 37-seat passenger jets from which it removed seven seats, meeting the FAA maximum and giving passengers extra legroom. Ticket prices include drinks, snacks, WiFi, and checked bags.

Passengers are thrilled: Last year, JSX was the only regional airliner in the world to win a five-star rating from the American Passenger Experience Association, winning top honors for the third year in a row. A Forbes contributor called JSX flights a “new, simple, and wonderful solution” to air travel woes.

But not everybody is pleased. In May, American Airlines asked the Department of Transportation (DOT) to “provide regulatory clarity,” charging that JSX’s business model “degrades our nation’s aviation system and distorts competition.” Southwest Airlines said that “there needs to be one level of safety for anyone flying on a scheduled passenger carrier.” The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), the world’s largest pilot union, accused JSX of “abusing a loophole that should be closed in the best interest of safety.”

In August, the FAA announced that it would consider changing the regulations that let JSX operate, declaring that it “intends to initiate a rulemaking to address the safety risks.”

The major carriers’ complaints are not persuasive. American may claim that JSX “distorts competition,” but there’s nothing stopping Americanor any other airlinefrom doing the same thing, offering short-hop flights on smaller planes that passengers can get to and from quickly. Yet the company prefers to complain that an upstart has found a way to eat into its market share without spending as much money as would be required to operate as a major carrier.

ALPA doesn’t like that JSX is exempted from regulations like the “1,500 hour rule,” which says pilots and co-pilots must have at least that many hours of flight experience before they can fly commercially, plus regulations on how much downtime a pilot must have between flights. But Gary Leff of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center points out that JSX has “30,000 hour captains mentoring sub-1,500 hour co-pilots.” And since they are “largely one and two hour flights,” the company’s “pilots mostly sleep in their own bedsfar better for fatigue than at nearly all” major carriers.

In an email seen by Reason, JSX CEO Alex Wilcox asked customers to submit public comments to the FAA opposing new regulations. Wilcox called the effort “a brazen attempt to regulate JSX out of business” and said that “JSX has a flawless safety record and far exceeds applicable safety, security, and regulatory standards.” He has also told The Dallas Morning News that “not once in our nine-year operating history has anyone at TSA, FAA or DOT ever raised any concern with the way in which we operate.”

In his email to customers, Wilcox notes that in Dallas, where American, Southwest, and JSX are all headquartered, “American has an 86% market share at [Dallas Fort Worth International Airport] and Southwest has a stunning 96% market share” at Dallas Love Field Airport. He accuses American and Southwest of operating a “de facto duopoly in Dallas that they surely want to preserve. That they’d stoop to trying to convince regulators and lawmakers that safety is in jeopardy, in order to maintain their duopoly, is shameful.”

Politics

DeFi revives the spirit of capitalism

Published

3 hours ago

February 25, 2025

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Decentralized finance is giving capitalism a makeover. There’s finally a version where everyone gets a fair shot, and everything’s out in the open.

Politics

Landmark moment as the return of Trump stuns UK into action on defence

Published

3 hours ago

February 25, 2025

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Landmark moment as the return of Trump stuns UK into action on defence

This is the moment the government finally woke up to the enormity of the threat faced by the UK and the inability of its hollowed-out armed forces to cope.

But make no mistake, today’s decision to increase military spending is not just about increasing the number of troops, warships and fighter jets or even ensuring they can use the latest drones, satellites or artificial intelligence breakthroughs.

This is an emergency that requires the entire nation to take responsibility for – or at least an interest in – the defence of the nation and the importance of being able to deter threats.

Politics latest: PM makes defence commitment

Sir Keir Starmer signalled this fundamental shift in priorities when he told parliament: “We must change our national security posture because a generational challenge requires a generational response that will demand some extremely difficult and painful choices.”

He continued: “And through those choices, as hard as they are, we must also seek unity. A whole society effort that will reach into the lives, the industries, and the homes of the British people.”

Such a proposal is not something new.

The UK has a long history of being prepared for war.

The entirety of the Cold War era was framed around ensuring the UK had enough troops and reservists to fight a sustained conflict, supported by a vast industrial base to produce weapons and a society that was intrinsically resilient, with the ability to sustain itself with emergency food rations, power supplies and an understanding of the need to be prepared to respond in an emergency.

Back then, the threat was war – maybe even nuclear annihilation – with the Soviet Union.

Today the threat is just as stark but also far more complex.

Russia is the immediate danger. But China poses a long-term challenge, while Iran and North Korea are also menacing adversaries.

Most fundamentally though is the change in the UK’s ability to rely squarely on its strongest ally, the United States.

Donald Trump, with his resentment of shouldering the responsibility for European security, has made clear the rest of the transatlantic NATO alliance must take much more of the share of defending themselves.

He has also signalled that he may not even be willing to deploy America’s powerful military to defend every single member state – singling out those who pay far too little on their defences.

He has a point when it comes to Europe freeloading on the might of the United States for too long.

But the suggestion that European allies can no longer automatically rely on their American partner to come to their aid is enough to call into question the value of Article 5 of the NATO Alliance, which states an attack on one is an attack on all.

When it comes to deterring foes, there must be no such uncertainty between friends.

It is why countries across Europe are being urged by the new head of NATO to rapidly ramp up defence spending and adopt what NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has called a “war mindset”.

The UK, who along with France are the only two NATO powers in Europe to possess nuclear weapons, has a bigger responsibility than most to heed that call.

Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 was not a sufficient enough alarm bell.

Eve Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022 failed to shake the UK and most of the rest of Europe from their slumber.

Instead, it seems the return of Donald Trump to the White House, with all the unpredictability that he brings, is the final shock that has stunned the UK into action.

Of course, defence insiders know that increasing spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 is not soon enough.

But this – coupled with Sir Keir’s language about the need for a “generational response” – is a landmark moment.

The beginning of the correction of a strategic mistake made by Labour and Conservative governments over years to take a “holiday from history” and fail to find credible, capable armed forces and ensure society understands the importance of defence and the ability to deter.

Politics

Badenoch says US is acting in its national interest – and UK must do the same

Published

3 hours ago

February 25, 2025

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Badenoch says US is acting in its national interest - and UK must do the same

Kemi Badenoch has said the US is acting in its national interest and the UK also needs to, ahead of Sir Keir Starmer’s meeting with Donald Trump.

The Conservative leader, giving a foreign policy speech in London on Tuesday, told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby the US is “not an authoritarian regime” and shares the same Western values as the UK, including free trade, free enterprise and free speech.

On Monday, the US sided with Russia on two UN resolutions when they declined to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine, and backed a resolution for the conflict’s end that avoided labelling Russia as the aggressor or acknowledging Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Politics latest: UK defence spending to rise to 2.5% of GDP

Ms Badenoch said the second resolution showed the US “acting in its national interests”.

“It is being realistic and we need to be so too,” she said.

“Now, that doesn’t mean we’re going to agree on everything. We disagree with them on that resolution, for example.

“But that is why I want the prime minister to be successful in his talks and find out what the thinking was behind that.”

‘Absolutely critical’ Starmer succeeds in DC

Ms Badenoch also said it is “absolutely critical” that Sir Keir succeeds in his talks on ending the war in Ukraine with Mr Trump on Thursday.

However, she did not provide details of exactly what he should succeed in.

Sir Keir is expected to discuss the importance of Ukraine’s independence, European involvement in peace talks and US security guarantees with Mr Trump.

Mr Trump, since becoming president just over a month ago, has called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator and suggested Kyiv started the war.

He has also sent US officials to negotiate with Russia in Saudi Arabia – but did not invite Ukraine or any European leaders.

Call for Starmer to cut development aid and welfare budget

Ms Badenoch urged Sir Keir to “repurpose” development aid in the short term and look to make welfare savings to fund increased defence spending.

She said 2.5% of GDP on defence is “now no longer sufficient” because any country that “spends more on debt interest than it does on defence, as the UK does today, is destined for weakness”.

“I will back the prime minister in taking these difficult decisions,” she added.

Her call came ahead of the prime minister’s unexpected statement on Tuesday lunchtime, in which he said UK defence spending will rise to 2.5% by 2027, and 3% in the next parliament.

The world has changed and the UK is not ready

Ms Badenoch said the UK must “accept reality” that the world has changed and “we can no longer hide behind vapid statements that were at best ambitious 20 years ago and are now today outright irrelevant”.

“It is time to speak the truth. The world has changed and the UK is not ready, so we must change too,” she said.

She accused the West of not doing enough to support Ukraine as “we were too ineffective, too indecisive and too often behind the curve”.

Because of that, she said: “Putin gained what he needed most, time. We now see the consequences.

“An end to the war is being negotiated while a fifth of Ukrainian territory is under enemy occupation.”

However, she said she was proud of the support her government gave Ukraine in the run-up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion and “in those first crucial weeks and months of the war”.