Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-336) and index.

When the federal government deregulated the airlines in the late 1970s, the new freedom was supposed to herald an era of competition that would result in lower airfares, more airlines, and increased benefits for air travelers. Instead, deregulation led to chaotic and ever-changing fares, an industry dominated by three giant U.S. airlines, and deteriorating service.

In Rapid Descent, Barbara Sturken Peterson and James Glab, two veteran airline industry reporters, trace the unraveling of the airline industry during fifteen years of deregulation. The initial promise of deregulation - which led to the founding of the famous People Express and other maverick airlines - was soon undone, in part by chance events such as the air traffic controllers' strike in 1981. Large airlines created powerful computer reservation systems, hub-and-spoke route networks, and other innovations that allowed them to crush smaller rivals, a trend that snowballed into a wave of mergers and bankruptcies in the mid- to late 1980s.

Informative and lively, Rapid Descent profiles many of the colorful characters whose names became synonymous with the airline industry, like Carl Icahn, the arbitrager who bought TWA and found out it was a lot harder to run an airline than it was to acquire one; Bob Crandall, the hard-charging executive who piloted American Airlines to the top of the competitive heap; and Frank Lorenzo, the former head of several airlines, whose highly publicized battles with labor earned him a reputation as America's most hated boss. Sure to be of interest to anyone who has ever found himself at the mercy of the airlines, Rapid Descent tells the story of how a well-intentioned policy went awry.

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