aren't there plenty of state owned airlines?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_airli...

Not in the USA. Also, the state’s interests often aren’t super well-aligned with the customers’ interests. Too many conflicts of interest for my taste.

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mylifeandtimes 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Evidence? Isn't the state the expression of the people's will? That's the theory of democracy, isn't it?

Also, any evidence or reason to believe that an extraction-based capitalist model is more aligned with customer interests (where the customer is the thing value is extracted from, and where corporate leadership salaries are directly tied to how much they can grift from the customers) than a government where the incentive is to get the maximum number of happy fliers to vote for you?

	▲	nerdsniper 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		“citizens”, “customers” and “politicians” are three different groups. The government might want to use the airline as tax revenue, artificially increasing prices on customers to support non-customers. Or the government may want to give their airline unfair advantages, which would decrease real competition and create a brittle industry. Or the government might want to strangle their own company, in order to declare that it is “bad and dumb” in order to manufacture popular support to privatize the public company.
	▲	MrBuddyCasino 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Isn't the state the expression of the people's will? Just recently HN discussed the „ban anonymity on the internet“ initiatives of various governments and who was behind it because nobody wants that. Certainly not the citizens.