Last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was in Des Moines to investigate first hand what many small city airline customers are complaining about: airline fares are too high.

When the airline industry was deregulated in the late ’70s, many hailed it as an opportunity for more people to fly since airlines would be forced by competition to lower their rates. Well, customers at small market airports are wondering where those lower prices are 20 years later.

For instance, for those who live in Kansas City or Omaha, it costs around $200 round trip to fly to Chicago. For someone living in Des Moines, it can cost up to $800! Obviously something is wrong when it is cheaper to drive three or four hours to a larger airport than to take a two hour flight from Iowa.

There have been attempts by smaller, low-cost airlines to penetrate these smaller markets. However, these airlines find an almost herculean task in trying to break into the small market airports. An example of this is Vanguard, who appeared in Des Moines in the early ’90s and became popular through their low prices and quality service. Recently, they were forced out of town by the predatory pricing practices of the big airlines like United and American.

The sham works something like this: Smaller airlines like Vanguard can charge lower airfares because their operating costs are lower and can attract thrifty consumers. The big airlines, seeing that they are losing potential customers to the little guys, will drive their prices down to a level well below that of the small airlines (you may have heard of these as “price wars” or “fare wars”). Despite the fact that the big airlines are losing money, their tremendous economies of scale allow them a negative profit margin in the short term.

The smaller companies begin to lose their customers to the larger airlines and have to move out of a smaller, unprofitable market. When the little guys have gone, the big airlines raise their prices to ridiculous levels to get back the profit they gave up while competing. That is predatory pricing, and it is one of the most unethical marketing practices.

Yes, companies have the freedom to make their own pricing policies so they can be profitable. However, that freedom can be exercised as long as large companies don’t collude to force out competing small businesses. This is the case with the airline industry.

The government needs to investigate these airlines and their policies further. The fact that Des Moines is one-tenth the size of Chicago doesn’t mean that its residents should have to pay a premium to travel.