You can thank this guy for low airfares

0 Comments | USA TODAY, July, 2007 | by Dan Reed

ITHACA, N.Y. -- At 89, Alfred Kahn doesn't fly as much as he used to. When he does, he can't help but smile and feel a sense of accomplishment when he sees how crowded the planes are these days.

"Sometimes, I even gloat a little bit," he admits with an impish grin. "Of course, unless I'm traveling with an associate, no one around me has any idea that I had anything to do with creating those circumstances."

More than anyone else, Kahn, a Cornell University economist who headed the old Civil Aeronautics Board under President Carter, gets credit for the dramatic lowering of fares over the past 30 years that has powered the explosion of demand for air travel.

Last year, a record 745 million passengers boarded flights in the USA. Most paid far less than...