Member-only story
5 People Braniff Couldn’t Have Flown Without
But did style over substance lead to its downfall?
Did you know that once upon a time, the only real thing that an airline could sell itself on was service? The Civil Aeronautics Board, or CAB, then a government agency, ruled the skies. The CAB set fares and routes, and the airlines had to lobby for whatever else they could get. If airfares were the same across the board, airline ad campaigns bordered on the sensational to differentiate themselves from the pack.
It was challenging to prove who had the best service, so airlines would go way out on a limb when describing their customer’s experience.
The reason that you, like I, may not care to fly anymore is that it’s become a homogenized commodity with no real difference between the carriers that are left. For the most part, who you fly on domestic flights is now based on the airline offering the lowest fare. So you don’t have much choice in air carriers anymore.
The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 extinguished the CAB and removed federal control over airline fares, routes, and what airline could fly to what city. It was the demise of most airlines in the U.S., forcing them to merge to stay alive or fold. The “Big 3” airlines (American, Delta, United) contain most of those airlines.
