Alfred E. Kahn

Alfred E. Kahn (1917 to 2010) was an American economist and regulatory scholar who chaired the Civil Aeronautics Board from 1977 to 1978 under President Jimmy Carter and led the dismantling of federal control over US airline fares and routes, work that became the model for the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Kahn was known for his self deprecating remark that as an aviation regulator he could not tell one plane from another, since to him they were all just marginal costs with wings, and the Civil Aeronautics Board he chaired is remembered as one of the few regulatory agencies in American history to deregulate itself out of existence.