When Flight Data Vanishes, Scarcity Becomes the Product
Source: Mauricio
The inability to access real-time flight inventory has flipped from a technical problem into a competitive moat. Search products can't differentiate on completeness anymore, so they're forced to sell the experience of *not* knowing what's available. A bankrupt airline's operating certificates trading at $10 million reveals that regulatory scarcity—the government-issued permission to fly routes—now holds more value than the airline's actual fleet or customer relationships. Consolidation has left the industry structurally constrained, and the price of those certificates signals that new entrants are betting on regulatory arbitrage.