14 airports have lost all commercial air service in the past three years, and 324 small airports have seen losses of air service averaging 30%.

While the long run trend is fewer non-stop flights in small markets, large hubs have made it economical for airlines to serve many of these markets with a connection. Now we’re seeing fewer – and in some cases no – connections.

The primary (though not only) reason for this is successful lobbying efforts by the Air Line Pilots Association – the major pilot union – that has limited the supply of pilots and driven up their wages. The goal of ALPA is to make it hard to become a pilot, so that airlines can’t replace them.

• 1500 hour rule. No other country requires so much unstructured time, unrelated to safety, in order to become a commercial pilot. After the Colgan Air crash – where the pilots were at fault but had over 1500 hours (!) legislators were looking to ‘do something’ that appeared to enhance safety and ALPA was ready with ‘something’. It was self-serving.
• Retirement age. Commercial pilots have to retire at age 65. Medical care has advanced, and so has medical screening. We can test vision, mental acuity, and reflexes. Pilots go through physicals that include checking heart, lungs, nervous system, blood pressure and more. We know if they’re healthy or not but have an arbitrary cutoff age. To be sure, may pilots want to retire at 65. Some of them go on to fly at air service providers can support pilots at an older age. But...

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