Since the airline industry, like most transport, exists only through subsidized infrastructure, it's prone to uncompetitive practice all around.
I realized this on my travel this holiday, just considering the entire security theater apparatus in the US. It's not just that the lines are longer and slower; they added differentiated tiers of service for the line, and the longer waits and ban on liquids encourage more purchases once through the gate. All the players involved in the racket will look at these add-ons and say, "sounds good for my bottom line," even though it acts as a tax on service quality.
And most of these things will likely remain because the technical considerations and the political realm exist in an equilibrium; giving the consumer more options can't be done within the logistical and safety requirements of large-scale air travel, thus it's up to the whims of the political system to coordinate and come to an agreement. A "sky highway" technology could automate away a lot of the coordination in flight, and smaller/more efficient aerial vehicles with VTOL and low noise could present a lower footprint for air travel, but these disruptions to the model are still a long ways away from reality.