Yeah, exactly. Of course airlines are important - and of course high fuel prices mean high prices for air travel, which means we need less of them than before, just as for any other industry. If wages go up, I'll raise my prices a little, shrink a little, and invest in substitutes (like machines). If the price of air travel goes up, and I'm a business, I'll put my prices up a bit, sell a bit less (since part of my production cost went up), and invest in substitutes (like IT and like producing nearer home so I don't need to travel so much). And if I'm a leisure traveler, I'll fly less. Both of those mean less flying, which means we need fewer airlines, or else all airlines shrinking. We're seeing that happening now. It's a tough adjustment process if you have investments (capital or skills) in the airline industry, but not a call for government intervention at all. What additional benefit would be obtained by government intervention? Well, the airline industry (owners, managers, and workers) would benefit at the expense of taxpayers, and we'd have inefficiently little shrinkage in the industry. If you're in the industry, you'd probably like that idea. Everyone else, not so much.