Peer-to-peer air travel.

What I'm really curious about, though, is whether the hub-and-spoke (or, we might say, client-server) architecture of air travel itself will ever give way to a decentralized peer-to-peer system.

[Jon's Radio]

Southwest Airlines has been doing point to point routing since its inception. I read a quote where Bob Crandall, the former CEO of American Airlines, said that point to point routing couldn't work, it was too inefficient. This was after Southwest had been eating the other carrier's lunch for years. It's hard to attribute Southwest's success to just that though, they're consistently the exception to the airline industry's rules.

Personally, as the victim of one of the monopolies in the hub and spoke system, I always wish these types of crusaders well. I've just always been disappointed. Maybe these guys are onto something. One of the problems with competing with the major carriers is the crushing capital requirements. With smaller, cheaper, more fuel efficient aircraft, the capital might be more manageable. There's a lot more to it, though. If I were to start an airline, I'd start by copying Southwest, exactly.