WAIF-er,
The Railtrack comparison you give is a poor one because the model on which the rail privatisation was based is totally flawed (because it was rushed for political reasons). Railtrack is not properly subject to market forces, and yet is not sufficiently regulated to protect consumers. There is also a dangerous fragmentation of safety control. The huge cost of entry into the market of providing rail infrastructure means that Railtrack will always be a near-total monopoly. Therefore the government has taken steps to change things, and a major change was necessary. The jury is still out on whether they have taken the correct steps (and I'm very sceptical on that).
Airlines are a different thing. It is not that difficult these days to start a commercial airline to fly between A and B - look at all the low cost carriers that have started in the British Isles in the last decade or so. This will get even easier if various governments can sort open-skies issues out in a fair way.
You say that companies look after their shareholders first and customers second, you're missing out an important cause and effect here: in a proper market companies that mistreat their customers end up hurting their shareholders as well. That's a simple fact of business: the customers pay the money to make the profits to pay the shareholders' dividends. Give the customers the goods or services they want in the right place at the right price and they will buy them, and your shareholders will benefit! Simple! It's only when markets get distorted that companies can hide behind the distortions away from this simple business premise. Government control and bailouts, for reasons that I have given above, are massive distorting factors. Companies are less responsive to their customers needs when they know they can get a government bailout if things get tough, not more responsive!
I completely agree with your comments regarding the 'land of free enterprise' bailing out its airlines, even in the light of the sad events of 11-SEP-01, but I don't think tit-for-tat EU bail-out is the answer. Where predatory pricing based upon government subsidy could be proved, a selective duty on trans-atlantic US airline passengers at the EU end might be a way of levelling the playing field (but would never happen, IMHO, because it would be a
PR disaster).
foggy.
[ 10 November 2001: Message edited by: foghorn ]