Our civil servants have done it again! In their wisdom, they have divvied up the air routes between Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and AirAsia. With that, the flying public will now be well served, so those officials believed. Such hubris!

Our civil servants and leaders should disabuse themselves of their fatal conceit (Hayek's phrase) that they could control the marketplace.

Neither MAS nor AirAsia has a right to exist; they have to earn it. Like other businesses, to survive they must provide services or products that the public wants. That is the essence of any enterprise.