When Flying Got Miserable (1978) w/ Ganesh Sitaraman
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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It’s December 17th. This day in 1978, holiday travelers are flying around the country under a regulatory system that was about to come to an end. The next year, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 would kick in.
Jody, NIki, and Kellie are joined by Ganesh Sitaraman of Vanderbilt to discuss how the act changed the competitive structure for airlines — and in turn led to a degradation of service, reliability, and the glamour of flying.
Ganesh’s new book is “Why Flying is Miserable… And How To Fix It.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:09.0 | This day, December 17th, 1978. Americans around the country are beginning their holiday |
| 0:17.6 | travels, getting ready for road trips and train trips, and of course, the dreaded holiday |
| 0:22.4 | flight. |
| 0:23.6 | But one thing to know about the holiday travel season in 1978, |
| 0:27.6 | it is the last holiday travel season before the Airline |
| 0:30.4 | deregulation act would go into effect starting on January 1st of the next year, and while |
| 0:36.2 | the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 might be the thing that more than any has led to this |
| 0:42.0 | modern idea and feeling we have that flying kind of sucks, right? |
| 0:46.1 | So we figured it would be good to do this episode around this holiday season when many of you are |
| 0:50.4 | probably going to be asking that question why does flying suck so much and here to discuss is |
| 0:56.4 | Ganesh Cetoraman author of the new book why flying is miserable Ganesh welcome to the show and your publisher didn't let you put the word suck in your title, huh? |
| 1:05.0 | You have to say miserable? |
| 1:06.0 | You know, I thought it would be a little more accessible to younger readers too |
| 1:12.0 | if I would have put in a second title. |
| 1:15.0 | A couple other things about the book I should say I should point out that the full title is |
| 1:18.8 | why flying is miserable dot dot dot dot and how to fix it so we will get to that part too and |
| 1:24.1 | Ganesh you're a professor of law at Vanderbilt University and guess what also |
| 1:28.6 | here on the show Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt's hello there. Hello Jody. |
| 1:33.0 | It's nice to have a little Vanderbilt reunion. |
| 1:34.0 | We've had so many Howard University reunions |
... |
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