This book is a collection of eight case studies of relationships between airline executives and federal regulatory agencies from the passage of the Air Commerce Act in 1926 to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. By focusing on the lives and personalities of individual entrepreneurs, W. David Lewis and his contributors hope to explore the interaction between technology, government regulation, and entrepreneurship. Each essay in the book focuses on a particular airline executive, such as Eddie Rickenbacker, Robert Six, and Donald Nyrop. Lewis has been careful to give a variety of perspective: Airlines of various types are represented -- large and small, scheduled and unscheduled. Some of the executives profiled were known for having adversative relationships with federal regulators, whereas others wholeheartedly accepted regulation and thrived under it. There have been public calls for a return to airline regulation, and Lewis thinks it is not inconceivable that regulation may ultimately return if problems continue and conditions deteriorate further. But, he say's, it is well to remember that deregulation occurred because there were flaws in the regulatory system it replaced. This collection of essays -- scholarly and well documented but written in a lively style suitable for specialists and nonspecialists alike -- provides a long-range perspective on the issue of airline deregulation.

This book chronicles the history of All American Aviation of western Pennsylvania, a commercial airline pioneer. The brainchild of self-styled inventor Dr. Lytle S. Adams and Richard C. du Pont, the company began as an airmail delivery carrier, taking advantage of the Experimental Air Mail Act passed by Congress in 1938. The Airway to Everywhere relates the exciting early days of airmail delivery—hair-raising tales of courageous pilots who scooped mail bags tethered to wires strung between poles on makeshift airfields. The story of this airline is placed within the context a typical twentieth-century American business pattern-where technological innovation is followed by development and commercial application, followed by government subsidies and corporate takeovers. In that vein, All American Aviation would become Allegheny Airlines, and later, U.S. Air.

"From 1920 to the mid-1990s, American transportation in the form of railroads, trucks, and airlines was simply a creature of politics and public policy. In brief, the markets for rail, truck, and airlines were not natural entities, but had been created through hard-fought political contests, full-time lobbying, and unceasing litigation. Between 1940 and the late 1970s, moreover, leaders of rail, truck, and airline firms lobbied and litigated to protect the workings of this regulatory regime." "In the mid-1950s, President Eisenhower asked Congress to award railroad executives authority to modify prices and service. Eisenhower was concerned about a railroad industry in decline. During the 1960s, President Johnson sought broad deregulation of rail, trucks, and airline firms. Johnson wanted another device to "fine tune" the economy. In the 1970s, Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter sought to deregulate transportation with a view toward reversing "stagflation." Between 1978 and 1980, Congress and President Carter approved deregulation of airlines, trucking, and railroads. Carter aide Mary Schuman played a crucial role in bringing about airline deregulation. For all the market talk that surrounded transportation politics before and after 1980, however, officials of the American state had been and remained the principal agents creating those markets."--BOOK JACKET.