Kristian Stout on Competition in the Airline Market
ICLE Director of Innovation Kristian Stout delivered testimony June 24 to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust at its hearing, “The 30,000 Foot View: Competition and Regulation in the U.S. Airline Industry.” Stout argued that the greatest barriers to airline competition often come from government-created bottlenecks—including airport-slot rationing, foreign-ownership and cabotage restrictions, environmental-review delays, and operational mandates that hit low-cost carriers hardest—rather than from insufficient antitrust enforcement. He urged Congress to modernize merger analysis for network industries, reform slot allocation, study foreign-investment and cabotage liberalization, codify environmental-review reforms, and subject consumer-protection mandates to rigorous cost-benefit review. Video of his opening statement is embedded below.