Which is actually worse than the regulated airlines were before Jimmy Carter deregulated them. When prices were uniformly set by the government, there were 11 "trunk" airlines in 1978, 9 regional airlines, and three unregulated intrastate airlines- one was Southwest (flying just in Texas, the other two, Air California and PSA, were just in California). Those 23 airlines are now down basically to the Big 4 plus 3 little ones (Alaska, Jet Blue, Frontier). Airline tickets were more expensive- well, the prices were about the same number of dollars but thanks to inflation that's a lot less buying power.