ABSTRACT
There are increasing pressures to make better use of transportation infrastructure and, in particular, encouraging suppliers to act in a manner more akin to a ‘commercial’ undertaking. Privitization, market liberalization, and new forms of economic regulation have thus emerged across virtually all modes of transport. In the context of airlines, the carriers in most major markets supply their services largely free of economic constraints, many airports have been privatized, and some air service navigation suppliers have been commercialized (often as not-for-prot enterprises). The motivating force for efciency under commercialized conditions is mainly seen as economic ‘rent seeking’; prot seeking to the non-economist. The retention of economic rent, however, can cause socially undesirable distortions, especially if it persists over a long period, and in some market conditions it can lead to inefciency.
