Originally Posted by
OFFlyer
It is the US goverment's intepretation of free competion. Basically it is (to my knowledge) a program that dictates that all US government and state officials MUST fly on American carriers.
You missed the other half of the Fly America program: that in exchange for requiring government officials to use US carriers when available, US carriers participate in the US Civil Air Reserve Fleet. Whether or not the CARF is needed can be debated, but the original Fly America Act was designed to compensate US carriers for having to give up their fleets or service if called upon to do so.
It is obviously anti-competitive, but the original reason for Fly America was not to lower competition.