There’s also an article on how American will try to fly its current schedule with 20% fewer pilots. The hard copy of the paper has a graphic accompanying it showing revenue declines in the airline industry since deregulation in 1978, and they’ve been pretty dramatic.

This is how dynamic competition works: competitors come in an take away market share, either through increased volume or through product differentiation or both, and part of the beauty of Schumpeter’s perennial gale of creative destruction is that firms have to innovate to cut costs and increase productivity in order to survive. And that’s good for consumers.