this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
316 points (97.3% liked)
Technology
57472 readers
3604 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Don’t you worry, I’m sure the free market competition will sort it out any minute now…
/s
But wouldn't a more free market in this case let them do more direct flights to Melbourne without requiring the extra leg?
The extra leg is only added to get around a specific kind of regulation of the market (limiting how many flights they can do with Melbourne as a destination), it wouldn't exist otherwise.
If Melbourne had unlimited capacity for flights, yes. But that's where the free market stuff tends to fail in reality, it works if you assume a market without natural limits, but not otherwise.
But a free market solution would be the airport increasing its prices until the demand at those prices matches how much capacity they have (and probably a push to add more capacity, or a build a new airport nearby, etc.)
The problem from Australia's point of view is probably that this could cause their own airlines to be out-competed by foreign ones, or it could reduce the number of destinations where flights are viable, etc.
There are slot limits that regulate that. This is just a policy to benefit domestic airlines while encouraging flights to airports other than Sydney and Melbourne.