Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
And to think that with slots having been allocated on the Japanese side, our government would be almost equally efficient. How naive.
Um, the DOT has a much more difficult task. There are four carriers fighting over the six slots, and the allocation between those four carriers is not pre-determined. On the Japanese side, it was pre-determined, with little or no public record as far as I know, that NH would get four and JL would get two, irrespective of the merits of their applications, as part of the continued consequences of JL's bankruptcy.
I strongly disagree with your implicit assertion that the DOT should have pre-determined the allocation of slots without a public process and a public record of how the decision is made.
The goal of a democratic government is not efficiency above all else. The Chinese government is much more efficient than the American government; that doesn't make it better.