Cannabis in US airports

 An anomaly of US Federal law is that marijuana is illegal on airplanes (interstate commerce) even when the airports involved are in states where marijuana is legal.

The WSJ has the story and a picture:

Don’t Put Your Stash in the Overhead Bin. A ‘Cannabis Amnesty Box’ at Chicago’s Midway Airport.  By Bob Greene

Elizabeth "Betsy" E. Bailey (1939-2022)

 Betsey Bailey, an economist of many parts, has passed away.

I knew of her both as an academic dean at CMU and as a proponent of airline deregulation, in theory and practice.  The theory had to do with the idea that even markets with big players who had lots of market share might be perfectly competitive (and hence not need lots of regulation) if they were "contestable," i.e. if new entrants could enter the market at low cost if they saw profitable opportunities.  The idea was that the airline market would keep prices low to ward off new entrants, or entry by competitors into profitable routes.  Her stint on the Civil Aviation Board led to much reduced regulation of commercial airlines, after which airlines adopted the 'hub and spoke' patterns we see today. (When they were regulated, airline routes looked more like railroads, e.g. some had northern routes, some southern...)

Here's the Washington Post obituary:

Elizabeth Bailey, pathbreaker for women in economics, dies at 83. She was the first woman to receive a PhD in economics from Princeton and helped deregulate airlines as the first woman on the Civil Aeronautics Board  By Emily Langer

"Dr. Bailey, 83, who died Aug. 19 at her home in Reston, Va., was widely credited with opening opportunities for women in her field.

"In 1972, she became the first woman to receive a PhD in economics from Princeton University. Five years later, President Jimmy Carter appointed her the first female member of the Civil Aeronautics Board, where she helped provide the intellectual framework for the deregulation of the airline industry.

...

"Later, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Dr. Bailey became the first woman to serve as dean of a Top 10 graduate business school."

*******

See 

Morrison, Steven A., Clifford Winston, Elizabeth E. Bailey, and Alfred E. Kahn. "Enhancing the performance of the deregulated air transportation system." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Microeconomics 1989 (1989): 61-123.

Bailey, Elizabeth E., David R. Graham, and Daniel P. Kaplan. Deregulating the airlines. Vol. 10. MIT press, 1985.

Bailey, Elizabeth E., and William J. Baumol. "Deregulation and the theory of contestable markets." Yale J. on Reg. 1 (1983): 111.

Airport security and privacy

Recent discussions of airport security in the post underpants-bomber era make it clear that privacy is a complex issue. For example, if an airport screener is going to see a digital image of what you look like under your clothes, is your privacy preserved better if the screener can't also see your face? If the screener is in a remote viewing room?

Debate Over Full-Body Scans vs. Invasion of Privacy Flares Anew After Incident
"The technology exists to reveal objects hidden under clothes at airport checkpoints, and many experts say it would have detected the explosive packet carried aboard the Detroit-bound flight last week. But it has been fought by privacy advocates who say it is too intrusive, leading to a newly intensified debate over the limits of security."
...
"But others say that the technology is no security panacea, and that its use should be carefully controlled because of the risks to privacy, including the potential for its ghostly naked images to show up on the Internet."
...
"“I’m on an airplane every three or four days; I want that plane to be as safe and secure as possible,” Mr. Chaffetz said. However, he added, “I don’t think anybody needs to see my 8-year-old naked in order to secure that airplane.” "
...
"Images produced by the machines in the days before privacy advocates began using phrases like “digital strip search” could be startlingly detailed. Machines used in airports today, however, protect privacy to a greater extent, said Kristin Lee, a spokeswoman for the T.S.A.
Depending on the specific technology used, faces might be obscured or bodies reduced to the equivalent of a chalk outline. Also, the person reviewing the images must be in a separate room and cannot see who is entering the scanner. The machines have been modified to make it impossible to store the images, Ms. Lee said, and the procedure “is always optional to all passengers.” Anyone who refuses to be scanned “will receive an equivalent screening”: a full pat-down."

Airport slot auctions in the Washington Post

Today's Washington Post has an editorial regretting the obstacles thrown up to auctioning airport slots, and in favor of good market design: Airport Slot Auctions--A good idea to relieve air traffic congestion is snuffed out.

HT: Scott Kominers

Auctions of airport slots: dead in the water, again.

The latest news on plans to auction off takeoff and landing slots at NY's LaGuardia airport: DOT scraps auction plan for NYC airports .

NYC's airports are the most congested in the nation, but plans for an auction have been politically troubled from the start (see some of my related earlier posts). What is the nature of the politics? Perhaps some of the airlines that fly in and out of NYC airports actually like the congestion, since it keeps out new competition by preventing airlines that don't presently have any slots from getting any.

Freakonomics has a non-auction suggestion for relieving the congestion: Shut Down LaGuardia.

Heathrow airport

Heathrow airport is in the process of expanding by adding an additional runway, a process that has run into lots of opposition, the Times reports: Heathrow gets third runway in £9bn deal . The Times further reports that Greenpeace is planning a delaying action: Greenpeace buys Heathrow land earmarked for airport's third runway.

The purchase of land in the way of the runway is only a delaying action, because the government plans to require the sale of the land, by eminent domain. But Greenpeace is hoping that the legal process is congested, and can be made to run very slowly, which might delay the process long enough that it could be revisited after the next election:

"The group also plans to divide the field into thousands of tiny plots, each with a separate owner. BAA, the airport’s owner, would be forced to negotiate with each owner, lengthening the compulsory purchase process. "

Competition among airports

London's Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted airports are presently run by BAA Ltd, which also runs the Edinburgh and Glasgow airports in Scotland. The Telegraph reports on the decision of the British Competition Comission to dismantle this monopoly by requiring BAA to sell two of the three London airports and one of the Scottish ones: Delays could be cut by BAA sell-off of Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh airports

The Competition Commission reports, together with BAA's replies and other comments are here.

Auctions of airport takeoff and landing slots--maybe not so soon after all

Auctions of slots at NYC airports delayed yet again: Court Order Delays Auction of Landing Slots at Airports

"A court order on Monday delayed a Bush administration plan to auction landing slots at the three major airports in the New York region, pushing the proposal into the Obama administration, where it may die.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted a stay on Monday, in a case brought by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, pending arguments on whether the Federal Aviation Administration has the legal authority to auction the slots. The first auction was scheduled for Jan. 12, eight days before the Bush administration ends. "

Who would have thought that such a good idea would run into so much trouble...

HT to Scott Kominer

Auctions of airport takeoff and landing slots--maybe coming soon

U.S. to Auction Slots Soon at New York City Airports reports the Times.

"The auction is scheduled for next Friday, with results announced soon afterward; the changes are to take effect at La Guardia in March and at Kennedy and Newark in October.
If the auction is not overturned by the courts or Congress — and either seems possible — it could be the last significant transportation action of the Bush administration, which leaves on Jan. 20.
What is being auctioned is the right to land, or take off, within a half-hour period for 10 years. The reserve price — below which the slot will not be sold — is $10,000 for peak hours and $100 for off-peak, but the president of the auction company, Lawrence M. Ausubel of Power Auctions, said that those numbers were likely to be “well exceeded.”
Mr. Ausubel said he did not know of any prior auction of airport slots."

HT to Scott Kominer

Auctions for airline takeoff and landing slots, continued

Feds Go Forward With NYC Airport Experiment

Plans for slot auctions at LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark continue, but it sounds like the fight is far from over.

"Federal transportation officials say much of the reason for nationwide flight delays is that airlines have tried to cram too many planes -- and too many small planes -- onto New York runways, and the overscheduling just isn't realistic.
To fix that, they have capped the number of flights coming into or out of those airports, and now intend to auction off a fraction of those coveted slots to airline bidders. An auction, they say, will use market forces of supply and demand to make the flight schedule more efficient."
...
" Critics of the plan are furious.
''It is simply shocking that the DOT is unabashedly continuing this ideological battle despite the staunch opposition from the entire aviation community and the independent finding that the DOT lacks the power under the law to implement the proposal in the first place,'' Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement."

Delay banking for air traffic

NASA proposes Delay banking for managing air traffic. The idea is that an airline whose flight was delayed by air traffic controllers would gain some 'delay points' that could be used to bid for early landing in (other) congested situations.

For some reason, NASA has taken out a patent on this idea. (The patent system is itself meant to be a solution to a certain kind of market design problem. The granting of patents to these kinds of "business practices" raises some questions about that solution. )

Auctions for airline slots

A good idea that isn't going anywhere quickly is an auction for airline slots in the most congested airports. Here's a recent story from the Washington Post.