So I came across this article the other day about General Aviation Entrepreneurship.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/02/08/338060/big-vision-at-small-airfields.html

I may be partial, but this is really exciting stuff, and exactly what we need to see more of!

In 1978, when the airlines were deregulated, it was score one for capitalism. Routes abounded, fares plummeted, and air travel was open to the masses. But for some reason, there are still a lot of problems in the aviation industry. Security is a huge hassle, there are so many extra fees, and it all around is not a pleasant experience (to all but us airline nerds!)

I for one think no extra amount of security will make us safer and we should drop the level down a bit. It’s the law of diminishing returns. I also think that unbundling of the fees is a good idea, you pay for what you use. And Southwest has shown you can make money by not doing it. The market at work.

But for true success in the aviation industry there are two more critical pieces which need to fall into place. The first one is air traffic control. ATC needs to be radically changed. Alfred Khan, the man behind airline deregulation, said that for the full effect to happen, ATC must be deregulated as well. Now, many people have bad ideas of chaos coming from this. But it could actually be done in a very standardized way which would keep everything uniform. If you think about it, we don’t have problems with different groups running ATC around the world. I’ll probably speak more to this later.

And finally, the whole point of this article, is the airports. Airports are primarily government owned. And as this article points out, governments do a poor job running GA airports. But let’s expand this, does this mean that governments do well running large commercial airports? I think the trend of having private companies run airports is a good start, but I think in the long run, airports need to be both owned and operated by private companies.

In 1997, congress passed a pilot program to begin the privatization of airports. Branson has received a lot of press, but it is unfortunately in a very tough market. Chicago Midway was supposed to be the big one that would unleash the floodgates, but the deal fell through last year due to financing drying up. So there are difficulties.

But I think entrepreneurs willing to take on small airports is a great start, there has obviously been success here and hopefully these people will take on bigger projects at bigger airports.

Would love to hear what you think!

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