Rates of Kahn.

• Author: Hazlett, Thomas W.

I hate flying Southwest Airlines, a company which intentionally discriminates against important people such as myself. The method: Rather than assigning seats like a civilized air carrier, they distribute numbered passes on a first-come, first-served basis.

Arrive at the airport two hours early, you get to be No. 13. Get there 90 seconds prior to take-off, you're Mr. 128. Once I got my act together and showed up more than 10 minutes before scheduled departure, a Hazlett World Record. I moved all the way up to No. 122. Traditionally, I'm wedged into a center seat between the 300-lb. truck driver and the young mother with a 6-month-old screamer on her lap.

This happens to me all the time, by the way. Despite the psychological trauma of such torturous in-flight conditions, it turns out that Southwest has such convenient flights that I can't afford the luxury of shopping for more humane conditions. It really pains me, you know, to do this--but I've got to be in San Diego by 4 p.m. and I can't possibly leave before two o'clock. Dial 1-800-IFLYSWA.

Despite my personal torment, I can see the bigger picture. In San Diego, for instance. While awaiting a return flight to Sacramento last June, I began staring at the folks crowded around the Southwest terminal at Lindbergh Field. Not your normal business traveling bunch. No sir. These were the folks who couldn't raise Greyhound fare: families, the very young, the very old, guys who thought about driving the 500 miles but couldn't afford a big enough cooler for the beer.

And I suddenly felt warm for Alfred Kahn. Author of the preeminent textbook on economic regulation and professor emeritus from Cornell, Kahn served his country with distinction as chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Most distinctly, as the last chairman of the CAB.

Professor Kahn came to Washington during the Carter administration and rearranged the federal agency that regulated the nation's interstate airlines. He saw that CAB'S safety functions could be shipped over to the National Transportation Safety Administration and that the allocation of take-off and landing slots could be done by the Federal Aviation Administration. What CAB held onto was the ability to regulate (read: limit) competition. And then Chairman Kahn shut it down.

I doubt if many of the $79 (unrestricted) fares flying Southwest from San Diego last June paid Professor Kahn much attention, but it would have been entirely appropriate if they had hoisted a beer in...