Senators pondering airline re-regulation?

Passenger-train critics like to cite the success of airline deregulation in lowering the cost of travel for "the traveling public." They conveniently ignore, of course, the fact that airline deregulation has produced losers as well as winners.

But a few U.S. senators have been paying attention.

U.S. Airways' CEO Doug Parker went to Washington last week to defend his company's bid for the bankrupt Delta Air Lines--and ran into a little turbulence from some senators who wondered aloud whether airline consolidation has gone a little too far.

On the subject of airfares, Sen Byron Dorgan "believes deregulation of the airline industry has been bad for smaller markets, saying it costs twice as much to fly to his home state from Washington than it does to fly to Los Angeles, which is twice as far away.

"'I think the market system is best way of allocating goods and services but I think it needs a referee," he said. "It's quite possible the market would say that air service only exists between the major cities.'"

Sen. Dorgan's home state is North Dakota, whose northern tier is served daily by Amtrak's Empire Builder.