REGIONAL CHANGES IN AIRLINE SERVICE SINCE DEREGULATION

This article looks at post-deregulation changes in regional airline service patterns in the 48 contiguous states and District of Columbia from 1978-83. Prior to passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, there was concern that deregulation's route entry and exit freedoms would cause small communities to suffer major service losses and become isolated from the nation's air transport system. Such fears have proven largely unfounded, but a more subtle variant of the concern was that service changes would vary across regions of the country with some areas suffering losses even though nationwide service might improve on average. To examine this second concern, changes in patterns of scheduled air service were studied for 6 large regions. Four measures were used to describe airline service patterns: 1) the number of communities served in the region; 2) the number of carriers serving each community; 3) the total number of scheduled aircraft departures/week for each community; and 4) the total number of departing seats offered/week for each community. The analyses also accounted for seasonality.