Summary

Summer 2026 was expensive for anyone who had to get on a plane. Higher fuel costs, driven in part by the war in Iran, pushed already steep fares up by as much as 27% this summer, according to The Points Guy. The relief travelers hoped for in the fall has not arrived. The same source expects Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s fares to land somewhere between 9% and 18% above last year’s holiday prices.

Fuel is only the latest pressure. In a September 29, 2026 essay for TIME, Ganesh Sitaraman, director of the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator and author of Why Flying Is Miserable and How to Fix It, argues that why flying is miserable is a question with structural answers. Bag fees, seat fees, shrinking legroom and vanishing service to small cities are the predictable results of decades of policy choices.

Below, we unpack what airline deregulation actually did, the specific forces that make air travel so frustrating today, the reforms on the table, and what businesses that depend on flying can do while the policy debate plays out.

What Is Airline Deregulation?

Imagine booking a flight in 1970. A federal agency, the Civil Aeronautics Board, approved which routes airlines could fly and what they could charge. Carriers competed on service rather than price, and the system was designed to connect large and small communities alike. That period, often called the golden age of air travel, was far from perfect, but it delivered a stable network and limited the ability of any single airline to exploit passengers.

Airline deregulation refers to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, which removed federal control over routes, fares and market entry. The promise was straightforward. Let the free market work, and dozens or even hundreds of new airlines would appear, competition would drive prices down, and nobody would lose out, including small towns, workers and passengers.

For a few years, that prediction looked accurate. New carriers entered the market and fares fell on busy routes. Sitaraman’s argument is that the underlying economics of aviation quickly reasserted themselves, and the industry drifted toward consolidation rather than lasting competition.

Airline Deregulation vs Essential Infrastructure Regulation

Deregulation treats airlines like any other consumer business, where market forces set prices and service levels. The alternative Sitaraman proposes treats aviation as essential infrastructure, closer to utilities, railroads or the electrical grid, where public obligations come attached to private operation.

The distinction matters because it changes the question. Under deregulation, losing service to a small city is simply a market outcome. Under an infrastructure model, it is a failure of an obligation that airlines owe in return for the public support they receive, from airports to air traffic control.

Why Flying Is Miserable: The Main Causes

The frustrations travelers feel at the gate trace back to a handful of industry dynamics. Each one reinforces the others.

Consolidation and Scale

Scale is a major advantage in aviation. After deregulation, large airlines undercut smaller competitors, pushed them toward financial distress and bankruptcy, and then acquired them. Over time, this cycle concentrated the market in the hands of a few major carriers.

Consolidation brings efficiencies like broader networks and loyalty programs. Its cost is reduced pressure to compete on price or service, because passengers often have few real alternatives.

Fortress Hubs

As carriers grew, they shifted to hub-and-spoke networks and built dominant positions at specific airports. Sitaraman points to two examples: Delta operates close to 80% of flights at Atlanta, and American runs roughly 90% of flights at Charlotte, North Carolina.

These fortress hubs make connections convenient for the dominant airline’s passengers. For travelers who live in those cities, they can mean limited choice and higher fares on routes where no rival can mount a serious challenge.

Airline Fees and Unbundling

Major U.S. carriers began charging for checked bags in 2008. By 2025, bag fees alone brought in more than $7 billion for U.S. airlines, according to Bureau of Transportation Statistics data cited in the essay. Seat selection charges are now widespread, covering windows, aisles and even rows closer to the front of economy.

Unbundling lets airlines advertise a low base fare and recover revenue through add-ons. The strength of the model for carriers is precise revenue capture. The weakness for travelers is that the true cost of a trip becomes hard to compare until checkout.

Dynamic Pricing and AI Personalized Pricing

Airlines were early adopters of dynamic pricing, adjusting fares frequently based on demand, timing and remaining inventory. The next step, Sitaraman warns, is AI-driven personalized pricing, where algorithms set fares based on what an individual traveler is likely willing to pay.

Personalized pricing turns the same seat on the same flight into a different price for different people. Supporters frame it as efficient. Critics, including Sitaraman in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, see it as a path to systematically higher prices.

Shrinking Seats and Legroom

While fees rose, the physical product shrank. Seat width and pitch in economy cabins have narrowed over the years, letting airlines fit more passengers onto each aircraft. Travelers now often pay extra for space that used to come standard.

Lost Service to Smaller Cities

The Government Accountability Office has documented declining air service at smaller and regional airports. Fewer carriers serving a city means fewer competing schedules, more itineraries with layovers and, on less-traveled routes, sometimes much higher prices. This is the “flyover country” problem Sitaraman wants to end.

A Fragile Network

Concentrating traffic through a few hubs means that a storm in one city can cascade into delays and cancellations nationwide. Extreme heat, winter weather and economic shocks have repeatedly exposed this fragility, and the industry has relied on taxpayer bailouts or bankruptcy when crises hit.

Proposed Fixes for Air Travel

Sitaraman’s reform agenda starts from one premise: the airline industry is essential infrastructure and should be regulated that way. His proposals fall into three groups covering communities, resilience and passengers.

A Duty to Serve

Airlines benefit heavily from public investment and support. In return, Sitaraman argues, they should carry an obligation to serve the whole country, including small and regional airports with affordable fares. Those airports are part of the foundation of the national economy, not optional extras.

An NFL-Style Draft for Cities

To restore service to smaller communities, he proposes a system modeled on the NFL draft. Airlines would receive a pick order, and smaller cities would be the draftees. Carriers would take turns selecting cities until every one was assigned, then be required to provide consistent, affordable service to the places they picked.

A Rainy Day Fund

Instead of bailouts, airlines would pay into a reserve fund during highly profitable years. That fund would cushion the industry during downturns, fuel spikes or other crises without sending the bill to taxpayers.

Caps on Hub Concentration

Limiting how dependent any network can be on a few airports would reduce both market power and fragility. A crisis in one city would no longer ripple across the entire country.

Infrastructure Investment

Sitaraman calls for significant investment in the basics of flying, from air traffic control to airport facilities. Staffing shortages and aging systems contribute directly to the delays passengers experience.

Passenger Protections

For travelers, he suggests the fixes are not complicated. Congress could set minimum seat sizes, ban dynamic and personalized pricing, and require transparent fares so the full cost of a trip is visible up front.

Challenges and Limitations of Airline Re-Regulation

Reforming a deeply consolidated industry would face real obstacles, even with broad public frustration behind it.

• Political resistance: Major carriers have significant lobbying power and strong incentives to protect current revenue models.
• Cost of service obligations: Requiring routes to small cities could raise costs that airlines pass back to passengers on busier routes.
• Pricing bans are hard to define: Separating banned dynamic pricing from ordinary demand-based fare changes would require careful rules and enforcement.
• Risk of reduced innovation: Critics of regulation argue that fixed rules can discourage new business models and low-cost entrants.
• Infrastructure funding gaps: Air traffic control modernization and airport upgrades require large, sustained public budgets.
• Hub caps could disrupt networks: Forcing changes at fortress hubs might temporarily reduce connections before competitors fill the gaps.
• Fuel and geopolitical shocks remain: No regulatory model fully protects fares from events like oil price spikes tied to conflict.
• Slow legislative timelines: Even popular reforms can take years to pass and longer to implement.

How to Choose the Right Air Travel Strategy While Fares Stay High

Policy change is slow, but organizations that spend heavily on flights cannot wait. The first step is understanding where money actually goes. Base fares are only part of the picture, so travel managers should track total trip cost, including bag fees, seat selection and change penalties, across carriers and routes. Comparing advertised fares alone hides the real spread between options.

Next, look at exposure to fortress hubs. If your team is based in a city dominated by one airline, negotiated corporate agreements, alternate airports within driving distance and flexible routing can unlock meaningful savings. Booking windows matter too, since dynamic pricing rewards travelers who understand when fares on specific routes tend to rise.

Finally, consider whether every trip needs to happen. Many organizations combine approaches, reserving air travel for client-facing and high-value meetings while shifting internal syncs to video or consolidating trips. The right mix depends on how central in-person contact is to your business, how much flexibility your teams have, and how much visibility you have into travel spending data.

Should Businesses Use Data and AI to Fight Back Against Airline Pricing?

If airlines are using algorithms to price fares, it makes sense for travel buyers to bring their own analytics to the table. Historical booking data can reveal which routes consistently spike, which carriers deliver the lowest total cost once fees are included, and where policy changes like advance booking requirements would pay off. Fare monitoring tools and predictive models can flag good booking moments that a person checking prices manually would miss.

There are limits. Personalized pricing, if it spreads, could make fares less predictable and harder to benchmark. That makes clean, centralized travel data even more valuable, because it gives finance and operations teams a defensible baseline for negotiating with carriers and agencies.

Choosing the Right Travel Cost Strategy for Your Organization

The answer to why flying is miserable is not bad luck or a single bad summer. It reflects consolidation, fortress hubs, unbundled fees and pricing systems that have grown more sophisticated since the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Sitaraman’s proposals, from a duty to serve small cities to bans on personalized pricing, frame aviation as infrastructure that should serve the public, and they are gaining attention as fares climb.

Until policy shifts, leading organizations are treating travel spending as a data problem. They measure the full cost of each trip, map their exposure to dominant carriers and use analytics to time purchases and set smarter travel policies. Getting this right protects budgets and keeps teams moving when fuel shocks or holiday surges hit.

If your organization wants better visibility into travel spending, cost forecasting or pricing analytics, Bronson.AI can help you turn scattered booking and e