Pico Iyer asks an interesting question: Why is service on U.S. airlines so bad compared with that in other U.S. industries? In particular, he asks:

“Why is it, I often wonder, that US carriers have far and away the worst ó most surly, inattentive and often snooty ó service in the world?”

Larry Ribstein figured out the answer to this enigma long ago — creative destruction.