I have to pick my car up from the shop tomorrow morning, so I thought I’d put my post up tonight instead. It’s amazing, but I actually do get email if posts don’t go up at the usual time. So, here you go . . . .

You always hear misguided governments argue that they need to prop up failing airlines. I’m not quite sure why that is, but combined with other government intervention (including the proposed passenger bill of rights which I don’t support) this probably helps explain why this industry will never be healthy for long periods of time. Something that happened over the last couple of weeks will hopefully help governments understand why coddling isn’t necessary. (I can always dream, right?)

Fortunately for me, it involves the airline I love to hate . . . Alitalia. I wrote a couple weeks ago about how Alitalia’s latest turnaround plan would involve significantly slashing flights at its Milan hub and moving them to Rome instead. Well, you know the government is freaking out about losing all that service in such a major city. But guess what? Where there’s demand, other airlines will come in and fill in the hole.

This time, it’s Ryanair to the rescue.07_09_16 mightyryanair Soon after Alitalia announced its retreat from Milan/Malpensa, Ryanair said it’ll come in with 12 planes based at the airport operating flights to 50 international and 10 domestic destinations within a couple years.

See, if there’s enough demand for service, when one airline goes, another will follow in its place. You argue that Ryanair doesn’t have the same level of service as Alitalia? True. But if enough people want full service, you can bet other airlines will come in and fill the need.

This has happened time and time again. Remember when Southwest set up shop at Chicago/Midway the day after Midway Airlines went under? And how exactly did Atlanta end up being the biggest airport in the world after losing Eastern Airlines almost 20 years ago? Delta and AirTran picked up the slack.

If airlines aren’t healthy enough to survive, governments should let them go. Don’t try to prop them up. Those airplanes will still exist and someone will pick them up and start flying them if there truly is demand. And if there isn’t demand? Well that would probably explain why the airline wasn’t doing well in the first place.

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