contact Hubert Horan at horanaviation@gmail.com
Over his long career Hubert Horan has worked on many of the most critical issues in the field of transportation economics, including the impact of regulation and mergers on industry efficiency, and the impacts of consolidation and other industry structural changes on consumer welfare. His early career focused on railroads and urban transport, and then refocused on aviation in the early 1980s. He recently emerged as one of the leading experts on the economics of Uber, and the impacts of the major structural shifts in the taxicab industry on efficiency and overall consumer welfare.
Horan was directly involved with all of the major changes aviation has seen including US deregulation, European liberalization, domestic and cross-border mergers, low-cost carrier development and bankruptcy restructuring. In addition to extensive consulting work he held airline management positions with Northwest, America West, Swissair and Sabena. He is a leading expert on international airline alliances, having developed the original Northwest-KLM alliance that served as the template for all subsequent global joint ventures. The full range of his aviation experience is described under “Aviation Experience”.
Over the years Horan has published a range of articles on airline competition, the evolution of airline business models, airpolitical issues, mergers and industry consolidation. His 2010 Transportation Law Journal article “Double Marginalization and the Counter-Revolution Against Liberal Airline Competition” documents how the DOT abandoned its longstanding market-friendly, pro-consumer policies in order to drive a radical consolidation of international aviation into a permanent cartel.
He has testified on merger and competitive issues before the United States Congress and the Department of Transportation has been frequently quoted in newspaper, television and industry trade journal pieces on aviation, and has led multiple graduate school seminars on airline competition. Copies of his testimony, articles and seminars can be downloaded at the “Aviation Publications” tab.
Horan’s strong knowledge of the economics of transport competition and regulation allowed him to demonstrate that Uber is incapable--now or in the future--of earning sustainable profits under competitive market conditions, that Uber is significantly less efficient that the traditional taxi operators it has been driving out of business, and that all of Uber's growth to date depended on unsustainable multi-billion-dollar subsidies. His Uber analysis through mid-2017 was incorporated into his Transportation Law Journal article “Will the Growth of Uber Increase Economic Welfare?” That article and more recent analysis of Uber’s financial performance and competitive economics can be downloaded at the “Uber” tab.
Mr. Horan graduated from Wesleyan University in 1976 with a B.A. degree and Honors in Economics. In 1980 he graduated from Yale University’s School of Management with an MPPM (MBA) degree. He is currently based in Phoenix, Arizona