Jim, first off, I am happy to respond and converse with you since you are not attacking Delta egregiously or maliciously.
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1. The protection of airlines from state consumer laws to be dropped.
2. The protectionof airlines from foreign competition to be dropped (happy for this to be bi-lateral to make it fair).
3. The protection of airlines from foreign ownership to be dropped (happy for this to be bi-leteral to make it fair).
4. The exemption of airlines from anti-trust regulations to be dropped
5. No airline should be allowed to file Chapter 11. If they fail, they should be permitted to fail and let the market work.
6. Normal monopoly powers to be applied. I would argue that no airline should be allowed to operate more than 25% of the slots at any airport.
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I have to say that I cannot find reason to disagree with your list. I think all these things would help the industry and the consumer. I especially like 2 and 3. I think 5 is good, but think that if they would apply that rule to the airline industry, they should apply it to EVERY industry (as well as 1, 4, and 6). I find it appalling that our government spent billions to bail car manufacturing companies out of bankruptcy when they obviously caused their own demise. Number 6 I think could be tricky in some places. With the way the industry is currently functioning, it would take MAJOR restructuring of flight schedules, maps, plans, etc, etc. What happens if no one wants to fly to BZM and only 2 airlines end up serving the airport? Then you've got a breach of rules on your hands since they both would have 50% of that market. Would you force all the airlines to fly everywhere? How would you solve that? As for the "fortress hubs" being monopolies, I still don't buy it since the airline has no real say over who can compete with them. They have no real way to stop them other than offer better prices and service and out COMPETE them. The very fact that the have to compete means it's not a monopoly.
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US airlines run to the government and demand protection as soon as anyone tries to compete with them. All of the legacies have filed briefs with the US government to block foreign ownership of US airlines and entry of foreign owned companies in the US domestic market.
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Bold is mine for emphasis... Again, I don't think this fits the definition of a monopoly. Because it is ALL of the airlines working together, not just one, it doesn't fit the mold of ONE entity having control. Control, or resistance, in this example is being shared by all the airlines. I think Open Skies would be great, and look forward to the day it finally happens.