The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978: Purposes and Consequences

Airline industry plays an important role in the development of any state. Due to air traffic, it is possible to transfer cargos for different purposes to any part of the world. Moreover, people have a chance to develop and perform business operations and quickly move from one location to another. In addition, air transportation promotes tourism, though being a significant budget article since it requires heavy expanses for constructing airplanes. For instance, the USA, like any other country around the globe, tried to find the most optimal solution to make air travelling accessible for people, promote competition in this sphere, and give freedom to airline companies.

Undoubtedly, the consideration of the chosen material is valuable for understanding of the reasons and the consequences of the adoption of the document. According to Dempsey (2014), “The ADA supernova has now emasculated the provision” (445) of the Federal Aviation Act (FAA) that deals with the FAA’s saving clause. On the contrary, Welsh (2014), explains this emasculation of the state document by saying “The ADA’s preemptive scope turns on the interplay between the competing interests of deregulating the airline industry and preserving the states’ Police power.” (17). Considering Dempsey position, it seems like he does not sound persuasive in his article and does not try to impose his opinion on the readers. Moreover, he has a distinct point view in the issue mentioned above and oversees questions which any American citizen may have. In fact, Dempsey reasonably grounds his opinion by explaining the influence of the ADA adoption.

The key points of the considered article and the conclusions made by the author are as follows: (1) the ADA caused numerous conflicts between states and passengers on the one hand and the airlines on the other; consequently, certain causes reached the Supreme Court which made certain contradictory decisions; (2) under the ADA different airline companies started misleading advertising campaigns and the National Associations of Attorneys General (NAAG) had to adopt the corresponding regulations in this sphere; (3) the ADA caused a significant number of court cases related to personal injury negligence; however, these cases were recognized subject to the state law. Therefore, the ADA provokes courts cases for which it does not foresee any specific regulations (Dempsey, 2014). It should be mentioned that though Brown considers the adoption of ADA successful (due to the fact that competition and conditions of the airline market entry and not political bureaucratsstarted to form the prices), he also discusses its drawback. According to Brown (2014), “There exists a near universal consensus that service quality has declined since deregulation” (97). Thus, Dempsey’s main conclusion about the ADA adoption is that the document caused additional difficulties for the U.S. juridical system and inconveniences for customers and his colleague Brown stresses the worsened quality of the services.

However, it seems to be rather complicated for the author to stay persuasive and to prove his point of view. Dempsey manages to do it by giving accurate reasoning and different sorts of evidence. Thus, speaking about dishonest advertising, the author exactly cites some of the provisions adopted by the NAAG, which concern round-trip purchase requirements, restrictive changes in the frequent flyer program and many other aspects, which were commonly not observed by the airline companies after the adoption of the ADA. Discussing the controversial nature of the ADA, which created additional problems for the Supreme Court, Dempsey (2014) speaks about the cases of Morales v. Trans World Airlines (1992) and American Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens (1995), which dealt with the state advertising guidelines, contradicting with the provision of the ADA and violations of the frequent flyer program, which was recognized preempted by the ADA, but not consistent with its provisions (Dempsey, 2014). The author notes that some claims about personal injury negligence and related compensations were considered preempted by the ADA and some were governed by the state legislation in this sphere (Dempsey, 2014). Consequently, this fact creates additional misunderstandings as the cases were issued on the same basis and bear the same context.

The analyzed article contains facts about how the airline companies started to behave after the adoption of the ADA. The general impression, which an attentive reader may have after reading this article, is that the ADA was an attempt to improve the economics of the American airline industry, though was not developed as the valuable document, consistent with the FAA, which caused additional problems. McDonnell (2015) writes that it is possible to discuss positive and negative consequences of the ADA forever, but “the fight for deregulation of transportation has been the story of a few brave but lonely economists stubbornly attacking the American economy’s largest legal cartel” (380). By saying this he confirms that the adoption of the ADA was caused by a desire of gaining more profit.

To conclude, it is important to state that administering the airline industry in such a big and a developed country as the USA is a very complicated task. Each attempt to implement some changes and to improve the situation should be separately considered, taking into consideration possible consequences. As it was mentioned in the paper, though the adoption of the ADA had positive aims, namely making the air trips cheaper for customers and stimulating liberty, innovation and quality, the document has not reached these purposes. The article under consideration proves this point and the only possible solution as for now is making the ADA fully consistent with the FAA and to control the protection of the customers’ rights better.