The FAA is a wholly owned subsidiary of the airlines.
Listen to approach/departure at any Class B airport from 6am to 9:30. Then listen (to largely nothing) from 9:30am until 4pm. Then it picks up again. Wanna know why? Because the airline industry is *de-regulated*. It's been up to the airlines since 1978 to set their flight schedules. And since everyone wants to leave in the morning and return in the evening, the nation's airspace is *packed* during those hours and underutilized during off-hours. The BL is that people have a perceived need to travel by air and they want to do it for free. Then the airlines want the taxpayers to subsidize their losses. Hell, there's an airline in Fort Wayne, IN that offers a $39.00 seat to Orlando, FL. Even filling every seat in every airplane, that company can't break even (let alone profit) from such fares. So, why do they do it? Because they know the Fed will bail them out.
In 1957, a ticket from New York to Los Angeles aboard a DC-3 cost the equivalent of $1,000 and flight time was 8-10 hours with a couple of stops for fuel along the way. It wasn't until jets became the standard for the commercial carriers that the common man could afford to fly. The Fed controlled flight schedules and the fares. The Fed made sure small market airfields had business. The Fed made sure the system load was even. We had competition based upon service, not price, which made flying fun (not to mention safer). Now, good ol' Murican bidness is in charge and the entire industry is in the sewer.
