pinniped

The reality is that American domestic competition is varied and spiky. The legacy cartel is careful to respect each other's turf. Each one has its cozy fortress hubs. Southwest used to be the great agitator until about 10 years ago, when they slowed their capacity growth and now mostly play nice with the legacies. That leaves the LCCs to strategically compete on select routes, giving America a mix of highly competitive routes and monopoly/duopoly pricing on other routes.

It's been interesting to watch the "cheap" and "expensive" routes out of my own airport (MCI) evolve significantly over time as LCCs start and fail and as WN decides to add or reduce service.

Davvidd

I wish someone else would fly domestic flights in Canada apart from West Jet and AC. I know Porter does to a few cities.

YVR Cockroach

More practically, SIN-XSP.

http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=sin-xsp&M...X=540x540&PM=*

Was surprised it was even 9 miles between the two.

trooper

Lets go further...why restrict it to AIRLINES? If folks want the benefits they think will come from foreign airlines having unrestricted access to US domestic markets, then shouldn't ALL US markets be opened to similar unrestricted foreign penetration? Wouldn't THAT benefit a lot of people too?

cbn42

The problem is that there are very few similar markets. If the US and Canada decided to have a reciprocal agreement for airlines to fly domestic routes in each other's countries, Air Canada would have a lot of difficulty entering the US market, and would get completely butchered at home with the new competition. This would only work between countries of similar market size, such as the US and China.

Most US markets are open to foreign competition. We have free trade agreements with many countries, and for others, there are WTO tariff guidelines. The US has German-owned supermarkets that sell Mexican produce that you can buy with a credit card issued by a Canadian bank and take back to your apartment which is owned by a Chinese investor. Restrictions on foreign competition in the transportation sector are the exception, not the norm.

But at the end of the day, the airlines are a very strong political force. The government will favor investors over consumers.

Smiley90

Emirates flies (flew? I can't find it anymore) ZRH-GVA. Though that may have been some Emirates subsidiary to get around it, I'm not 100% on the details.
SQ flies JNB-CPT (but they're not allowed to sell seats for it, it's a pure tag-on for SIN-JNB-CPT)

tmiw

Assuming the US government actually did allow this, which routes would foreign carriers want to compete on? Personally, I don't really see foreign carriers flying many more routes than the ones that already have a lot of competition (e.g. LAX-JFK/EWR). Even tag-on routes (like the soon to be former AKL-LAX-LHR route or Quantas' SYD-LAX-JFK) might become less important as more efficient aircraft that can do long direct hops come online.

Mwenenzi

Australia - New Zealand is a single aviation market
Ansett Australia was 100% owned by Air NZ, before it went bankrupt in 2001. Air NZ could fly Aust domestic flights if it wanted to, could get airport slots and get a union agreement.
Qantas used to operate in NZ. Was then replaced by QF owned Jetstar..
Virgin Australia used to operate in New Zealand until it gave up. (lost $$$$)
Virgin Australia VA is ~90% foreign owned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Australia_Holdings
Several non Au - NZ airlines fly between the 2 countries: SQ, EK, LA, CI . Used to be more

A318neo

That would be terrible. China Southern and others would take over the US market.

No, I would consider the EU and the US to be a similar market. Another similar market would be if there were a treaty with, say Chile, in that the Chileans wouldn't have US access until the US has complete international access (7th freedom) to Chile AND a bunch of other countries.

loopflyer

Yes: But I would allow only LATAM Chile, Iberia, Qantas, Air New Zealand, Alitalia, China Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Air Canada, Finnair, Cathay, Swiss, Austrian, Air France, Aer Lingus, Japan Airlines, ANA, and Singapore. No, not even BA or SAS or Garuda, Thai, Malaysian, Vietnam, Aeorflot, Kuwait, Gulf Air, Air India, Banladesh, Pakistan, South African, LOT Ryan, Easy, Wizz, Air Iceland orTurkish or the Gulf Big 3, EVA or any Communist Chinese carrier - and certainly not KOAIR.

Kevin AA

Instead of trying to match the U.S. market with a foreign market of the same size, just require the passenger count to be the same, e.g. AC can fly 100,000 people a year if U.S. airlines can fly 100,000 people a year on Canadian domestic routes.

We would also need to require the foreign airline to not be subsidized by the government. Otherwise the result is U.S. airlines are forced out of business, or the federal government has to do the same and susidize American carriers.

enviroian

Where does the term cabotage come from? From sabotage or cabbage? Lol

Qwkynuf

Wikipedia says: The term "cabotage" is borrowed from French. It is derived from caboter which means "to travel along the coast". The origin of caboter is obscure: it may come from cap or cabo "cape", or it may refer to a type of boat. Attempts to link the name to the Italian explorer Cabot are not supported by evidence

Thanks for asking. I have wondered about that myself, but never bothered to look it up before. I had alway assumed that it had been named after some "robber baron" - like an Astor, or a Rockafeller - who had done Bad Things™.

tdietterich

Slightly off topic, but another way the US subsidizes our airlines is through the Fly America Act. As a university professor, when I fly on Federal grant money, I'm required to book with a US carrier. Often that will be a code-share operated by, for example, BA or AC, but priced $500 higher than if I bought it directly from BA or AC. I think this should be eliminated.

cbn42

The US government already subsidizes American carriers quite heavily. There are subsidies for unprofitable service (SCASDP and EAS), marketing subsidies and waived landing fees offered by airports and cities, Fly America Act for government employees/contractors, bailouts after disasters like 9/11, and so on. Many of these subsidies are for domestic service, but they can bolster an airline's overall network.