Michael E. Levine (Born New York, NY, United States, died February 3, 2017 age 75) was a "Distinguished Research Scholar" at the New York University School of Law. He made substantial contributions to the world of air transportation and its regulation as a senior airline executive, an academic and a government official. He retired from Northwest Airlines in 1999 to return to academic life.
Levine held a BA degree from Reed College (1962) and an LLB degree from Yale Law School (1965). He did graduate work in economics at Yale and the University of Chicago.
As an airline executive, Levine served at Continental Airlines (1981–82) and Northwest (1992–99) as an Executive Vice President and was President and CEO of New York Air (1982–84), guiding that post-deregulation startup airline to its first profit. [1] At Northwest, he was principally responsible for the commercial strategy and activities of the company, and for developing and executing Northwest's pioneering alliance strategy, including its joint venture with KLM and its alliance with Continental. At Continental, he had similarly broad responsibilities and was principally responsible for the realignment of its Air Micronesia subsidiary to serve Japan.
As an academic, he was an early advocate of interdisciplinary studies in law and economics and political science. A student of Nobel laureate Ronald H. Coase at the University of Chicago and of Robert H. Bork, Ward S. Bowman and Friedrich Kessler at Yale, Levine established an innovative program in law and social sciences at Caltech and U.S.C., while holding professorships at both institutions. He served as Dean of the Yale School of Management (SOM) (1988–92) and held professorial chairs at Caltech (1973-1984), Yale (1987-1992) and USC. He has also been a member of the law faculties at Harvard (1999–2002) and Yale (2002–2005) and has been an academic visitor at MIT, the London School of Economics, the Interdisciplinary Center of Hertzliya Israel, the University of Virginia and Duke University. Levine has done pioneering research on airline deregulation, on the application of market mechanisms to airport congestion, on committees and agendas and on the origins of regulation, regulatory capture, and the behavior of regulatory agencies. His 1965 Yale Law Journal article [2] using the superior performance of the California intrastate airline system to advocate deregulation of the Federal system was the first modern publication to advocate airline deregulation. Levine and this article were among the important sources relied on by then-professor Stephen Breyer when organizing the 1975 hearings on airline deregulation for Senator Ted Kennedy [3] . It was extensively cited by Alfred E. Kahn in his monumental treatise on regulation, The Economics of Regulation [4] and prompted Kahn to name Levine the senior staffer at the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) when Kahn became Chairman in 1977 with a mandate to deregulate to the maximum extent possible. [5]
As a government official, Levine was instrumental in bringing about airline deregulation. In 1978 and 1979, he served as General Director, International and Domestic Aviation, (the senior staff position at the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board) and devised many of the mechanisms and practices used to deregulate the industry. He also served as a member of the Aviation Safety Commission, established by Congress in 1986 to evaluate airline safety since deregulation. [6]
Levine was named among the ten most influential pioneers in the history of commercial aviation by Airfinance Journal, received the Transportation Research Foundation’s Distinguished Transportation Researcher award for lifetime achievement, and was the recipient of the CAB’s Distinguished Service Award.
Levine's Yale SOM deanship generated some controversy that was covered fairly extensively by the media. When Levine became dean, Yale's SOM was unable to attract a dean with a national reputation. President Benno Schmidt was under pressure from the Yale Corporation to change it or close it. He recruited Levine, a regularly appointed holder of a professorial chair who was already a member of the SOM faculty, as dean. Together they made changes that infuriated some faculty, although they were supported by others. The aggrieved faculty and some student and alumni supporters publicly resisted the changes.
Levine died February 3, 2017. [7]
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a U.S. federal government agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation which regulates civil aviation in the United States and surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic control, certification of personnel and aircraft, setting standards for airports, and protection of U.S. assets during the launch or re-entry of commercial space vehicles, powers over neighboring international waters were delegated to the FAA by authority of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
The Airline Deregulation Act is a 1978 United States federal law that deregulated the airline industry in the United States, removing federal control over such areas as fares, routes, and market entry of new airlines. The act gradually phased out and disbanded the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), but the regulatory powers of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were not diminished over all aspects of aviation safety.
Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of new trends in economic thinking about the inefficiencies of government regulation, and the risk that regulatory agencies would be controlled by the regulated industry to its benefit, and thereby hurt consumers and the wider economy. Economic regulations were promoted during the Gilded Age, in which progressive reforms were claimed as necessary to limit externalities like corporate abuse, unsafe child labor, monopolization, pollution, and to mitigate boom and bust cycles. Around the late 1970s, such reforms were deemed burdensome on economic growth and many politicians espousing neoliberalism started promoting deregulation.
A regional airline is a general classification of airline which typically operates scheduled passenger air service, using regional aircraft, between communities lacking sufficient demand or infrastructure to attract mainline flights. In North America, most regional airlines are classified as "fee-for-departure" carriers, operating their revenue flights as codeshare services contracted by one or more major airline partners. A number of regional airlines, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, were classified as commuter airlines in the Official Airline Guide (OAG).
Airline deregulation is the process of removing government-imposed entry and price restrictions on airlines affecting, in particular, the carriers permitted to serve specific routes. In the United States, the term usually applies to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. A new form of regulation has been developed to some extent to deal with problems such as the allocation of the limited number of slots available at airports.
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The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services and conducted air accident investigations. The agency was headquartered in Washington, D.C.
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Richard L. Revesz is an American lawyer and academic. He is the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. During his government employment, he is on leave as the AnBryce Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. He served as dean of the New York University School of Law from 2002 to 2013, and as the director of the American Law Institute from 2014 to 2023.
A public service company is a corporation or other non-governmental business entity which delivers public services - certain services considered essential to the public interest. The ranks of such companies include public utility companies like natural gas, pipeline, electricity, and water supply companies, sewer companies, telephone companies and telegraph companies. They also include public services such as transportation of passengers or property as a common carrier, such as airlines, railroads, trucking, bus, and taxicab companies.
Sharon Monica Oster was an American economist. She was the Frederic D. Wolfe Professor Emerita of Management and Entrepreneurship and the dean of Yale School of Management, where she was the first woman to receive tenure, and the first female dean. She was widely known as an economist focusing on business strategy and non-profit organization management.
Elizabeth Ellery Bailey was an American economist. She was the John C. Hower Professor of Business and Public Policy, at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Bailey studied deregulation, market competition and regulatory capture through her career and contributed to the deregulation of the airline industry in the United States in the late 1970s.
Alfred Edward Kahn was an American economist and political advisor who specialized in regulation and deregulation. He was an important influence in the deregulation of the airline and energy industries. Commonly known as the "Father of Airline Deregulation," he chaired the Civil Aeronautics Board during the period when it ended its regulation of the airline industry, paving the way for low-cost airlines, from People Express to Southwest Airlines.
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The Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act, more commonly known as the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (MCA) is a United States federal law which deregulated the trucking industry.
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Transportation in the United States is governed by laws and regulations of the federal government. The Department of Transportation is responsible for carrying out federal transportation policy, and the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for security in transportation.
"In Memoriam: Michael E. Levine" (PDF). New York University Journal of Law & Liberty. 11 (1): 1–47. 2017.
"Memorial Celebration of Michael E. Levine" (video). youtube.com. NYU School of Law. April 26, 2017.