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Federal Flight Auctions

Today, the New York Times reports that the Department of Transportation will begin auctioning landing slots at JFK and Newark airports to help alleviate congestion.

Together the changes are meant to untangle the metropolitan skies and to make it easier for new airlines to gain access to the lucrative New York market, a step the administration expects will help keep fares down.

How is an auction supposed to help new airlines gain access to the market?

We’re trying to cap the number of flight slots, which means that there are fewer available – this means that it will drive prices up.

Airlines currently own the slots, but they will be forced to give up a certain number of the slots they own for auction – so the government seizes private property.

Any airline, including the one that gave up the slot, will then bid at the auction – so the big airlines that have a financial advantage will always be able to outbid the new guys for the more expensive slots.

We also just made the airline who originally owned the slot that the government seized pay more money in order not to have it taken away.

Did I close my eyes last night and wake up this morning to find that Mao Tse Tung now rules this country? What the hell is going on here?

This is catastrophically bad for airlines and bad for consumers. The increase in costs will get passed on in increased ticket prices.

Such caps run counter to the pro-competition leanings of the Bush administration, but officials say they regard the auctions for takeoff and landing slots as an appropriate “market mechanism.”

Actually, and appropriate market mechanism would be for the government not to get involved and let the market sort things out. If we want to be brutally honest, the government shouldn’t regulate the airlines at all if we’re talking about market solutions. Airlines who couldn’t keep their planes from crashing into fiery oblivion (hopefully with the DoT morons who though this up aboard) would go out of business, as would airports that couldn’t keep planes arriving and departing on time.

This is the exact opposite of a market mechanism, and it is a complete way for Mary Peters and her merry bunch of clowns to dodge the real issue: WE NEED MORE AIRPORTS AND WE NEED TO EXPAND THE ONES WE HAVE.

The government needs to overhaul the whole thing and find ways to expand the infrastructure. Until they do that, all the caps, auctions and schemes in the world aren’t going to change the fact that more and more people are flying and there is no more space to accommodate them. We’re trying to stuff ten pounds of crap into a five pound sack.

Don’t count on DoT to step up to the plate on this one though – they’re probably too busy sniffing their own farts while making important plans to remove lanes from the highways to reduce congestion or develop perpetual motion machines to eliminate fuel consumption.

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