Economic reform is surely a good thing for any self-respecting country seeking to provide jobs and opportunities for its people. Deregulation is often essential to get rid of tedious and tired rules and bureaucratic hang-ups (and bypass bureaucrats who play petty tyrant).

Capitalism — properly regulated — is a superior economic system to help achieve the best results from reforms. The market offers the acid test in helping to sort out sound and good ideas and projects from harebrained ones.

Unfortunately, when governments put these elements together they don't add up. That is happening today in aviation, with increasing concentration of power in the hands of greedy oligopolistic airlines. Hundreds of millions of airline passengers are facing unnecessary turbulence as airlines squeeze as much money as possible from them, and governments look away rather than see that passengers get a fair deal.