Why Flying Is Miserable

And How to Fix It

By: Ganesh Sitaraman

Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey

Why are the airlines always in a crisis?

Everyone has a horror story about air travel—cancellations, delays, lost baggage, tiny seats, poor service. In this day and age, there is no reason that flying should be this bad. In Why Flying Is Miserable, Ganesh Sitaraman, a law professor and policy expert, explains how this happened: It was a conscious choice made by Washington in the 1970s to roll back many forms of regulation that began during the New Deal, in the name of unimpeded capitalism and more competition. Today, the industry is an oligopoly, with only four too-big-to-fail airlines that have received billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts and still can’t offer reliable service.

Miserable air travel is the perfect symbol of the type of unregulated capitalism that America has unleashed. But there are ways to fix airlines—and, by extension, many other sectors of industry—because, after a half-century run, people are sick and tired of the turbulence that deregulation has brought to our economy.

Solid account on how we be got here

This is a clearly articulated walk through of the conditions and decisions that led to the hollowing out of an industry. If you still think Reagan and Laffer had it right, you might take exception to the uncomfortable realities described in the book, but sometimes reality is hard to wrestle with.

Best Companion for A Flight

What matches your miserable flight better than a book about why your flight is so gloomy? The book is a systemic review of the root, development, trend, and suggestions for reform. It also provides practical recommendations at the end. It's informative and insightful - I learned a lot.

This book tells the history of the flying industry at a high level and could benefit from a few human-centered stories, such as how its workers and owners were affected by the rise and fall of the industry as individuals, not just a class of economic roles. The narrative sounds lecture-like in places.

If you like this book, check out the author's other works. If you are interested in the insights of other industries that is part of our daily life, try (listed chronologically)
- Cyber security industry - Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks
by Scott J. Shapiro (2023)
- Health care industry - "Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It" by John Abramson (2022)
- Financial industry - "Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing" by Jacob Goldstein (2020)
- Grocery industry - "The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket" by Benjamin Lorr (2020)

Wild propaganda

Insane amount of bias from the author. Might as well just call this what it is: anti-market propaganda that misleads with the ‘facts’ to push a preconceived political agenda. There are true pros and cons to deregulation but they are not discussed honestly here.