 Southwest Airlines melting down in the wake of the Christmas holiday. One of the worst airline meltdowns. Travel nightmare. Unprecedented chaos. Chaos. Chaos. It's crazy. When Southwest Airlines underwent a historic meltdown during the Christmas travel season and canceled nearly 17,000 flights, politicians pounced like passengers on a second bag of free peanuts. Well, they need to take care of their passengers and they need to take care of their employees. It's an unacceptable situation. But what about the FAA? When it's noticed the air mission system, which gives pilots information about flights, crashed due to a corrupted file, the agency halted all domestic air travel, triggering 1,700 cancellations and 9,000 delays that screwed up air travel for days. Secretary Buttigieg has pledged to get to the bottom of it all and update the system with the single-mindedness of a TSA agent confiscating your toenail clippers. We'll be approaching Congress indicating the resources and strategy that we think we need for the next five years to make sure that FAA has everything that they need in terms of systems, resources, and staff. Don't expect much to happen anytime soon. Minnesota Congressman Pete Stauber introduced legislation to modernize the notice to air mission system in 2019 and 2021, but it ultimately went nowhere. And when it comes to the air traffic control system that actually governs all takeoffs and landings, the FAA is about two decades behind other countries when it comes to directing air traffic. Back in 2009, Reason produced a video about how Canada and other countries had privatized air traffic control and saw delays decrease and safety increase. Canadians allowed Nav Canada, a private company, to manage their Scots. So the next time your plane is delayed, think about why you're stuck. Maybe it's because of the weather, or maybe it's because of politics. What would actually produce safer, cheaper, and less disrupted air travel? More deregulation. Inflation-adjusted ticket prices declined 60% between 1980 and 2020, which explains how air travel went from something only businessmen in the wealthy did to a common practice. But too many aspects of air travel remain under government's inept and stuck in the past control. Foreign-owned airlines are blocked from competing with domestic carriers in the name of national security. The number, placement, and operation of airports are controlled by various levels of government, leading to insane monopolies and fewer flight options in places such as Atlanta, Denver, and Vegas. Even in today's less than free market, Southwest will have to fight like hell to win back customers by keeping prices low and performance high. The FAA, and the government more generally, doesn't face the same pressure. We'll see which one fixes its problems before the next Christmas travel season.