Modern examples of oligopolies include the airline industry

An oligopoly is a market structure where a few large businesses dominate the entire market

When a few large companies dominate a market, changes in pricing for goods and services affect the entire market. Airlines are a common example of an oligopoly. Because the barrier to entry in the aviation industry is high, only a few airline companies offer the majority of the industry's services. While there is some competition, pricing across the board is largely intertwined and based on other companies' prices.

Find out how airline mergers created some of today's largest airlines

Four airlines dominate the US commercial airline industry: Delta, United, Southwest, and American. Many of these large companies secured their top spots in the industry via a series of mergers and acquisitions starting in the 1970s, when American acquired Trans Caribbean Airlines.

An overview of monopolies, when one company controls an entire market

In the business world, a monopoly exists when one company controls the entire market. Regulators take issue with monopolies because they have been found to limit consumer choices, raise prices, and hurt competition.

Explore a list of well-known monopolies

Many American monopolies popped up during the rapid industrial growth of the Gilded Age. Industries like steel, tobacco, railroads, and telecommunication have all been monopolized at some point in history.

Utility companies are often considered 'natural' monopolies, which occur in industries where the upfront costs of entering the market are high, making competition unrealistic.

Monopolies are considered the most extreme form of imperfect competition

True monopolistic companies face no competition, meaning there aren't any near substitutes for the goods or services the company provides. Often, no competition exists because the monopoly is either approved by the government or the barrier to entry is costly.

A 'bilateral monopoly' occurs when there's one supplier and one buyer in a market

Bilateral monopolies are often used to conceptualize labor markets in small towns. Using this concept, large employers have a monopoly over the labor market, while workers have a monopsony as the only available laborers.

See a visual of the largest airlines in the US by market share.

Some airlines—like American Airlines, which started the first modern airline loyalty program—have loyalty programs with higher valuations than the airline itself.

Watch how American monopolies used vertical and horizontal integration strategies to command markets

Vertical integration occurs when a company controls the entire manufacturing or development process, whereas horizontal integration involves expanding a company's market share. Both strategies have been used by US monopolies to establish dominance in markets.

Airbus is a rare European industrial success story that overtook a rival American firm

After World War II, the US dominated aviation, particularly Boeing. To compete, Europe's major industrial nations pooled resources to form Airbus, a customer-centric airplane manufacturer. Its A320 family of planes became the most popular in airliner history, leading to profitability in the 1990s. Amid Boeing's major hurdles in recent years, Airbus remains the industry leader.

Market concentration and high markups don't always signal a monopoly

When regulators and economists evaluate whether a company constitutes an illegal monopoly, they often consider its overall market share or its relatively high price markups. This piece argues that the Olley-Pakes decomposition is a better measure, identifying whether customers within a market are switching to more productive companies.

Learn about the bodies that govern the US commercial airline industry, such as the FAA

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates US air travel, monitoring both safety and advancement. But despite deregulation in the 1970s, the industry has other governing bodies, too, including the US Department of Transportation and the TSA.

The drastically different seat tiers on airplanes are a prime example of 'price segmentation,' which is key to keeping airlines profitable.

A 'monopsony' is a market with a single buyer—rather than a single supplier

A monopsony is the demand-side equivalent of a monopoly, where a single buyer commands a market. In a monopsony, the buyer has an outsized influence over the price of a product or service because they control most or all of the sales in that market.

The seven major US freight rail companies

The US railroad industry is dominated by seven long-running freight conglomerates. Get the basics on each of these companies with this brief overview.

Learn more about the four main market structures

In modern economic theory, there are four main market structures. Under each market structure, firms (or businesses) have differing levels of competition and reach different levels of price efficiency based on the consumer's willingness to pay for a product or service.

Find out how airlines quietly became banks

Some experts suggest airlines lose money on every flight. This video dives into how airlines have leveraged their loyalty programs to make billions of dollars, effectively evolving into banks.

Network effects are the economic term for a good or service's popularity

When goods or services become especially popular, firms that provide that good or service become dominant in the market—which can ultimately lead to a monopoly.

Nearly 3 million people fly in and out of US airports every day—but not all of those passengers generate revenue for the airlines they purchase their tickets from.

Commercial air travel's early days: Flights were short, cold, depressurized, and generally comfortable

After World War II, airlines competed for their high-end passengers by offering cocktails, meals, and plush seats, cultivating the image of the elite "Jet Set." By the 1960s, air transport was completely changing global trade and offering big profits to companies able to ship via plane.

See a timeline of the consolidation of the television and film industry, beginning with Vaudeville theatre traditions from the 1880s.

Read the Federal Trade Commission's legal definition of a monopoly

The Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division are the regulatory agencies responsible for overseeing antitrust laws. Before deeming any company a monopoly or acknowledging monopolistic power in a market, the FTC conducts thorough research into market competition, price, and even other competitors' business practices.

Nvidia controls more than four-fifths of the GPU market—but isn't considered a monopoly

Semiconductor company Nvidia has a commanding market share when it comes to graphics processing units. Its competitors include Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, which together account for less than a fifth of the GPU market.

The firms running America's voting systems

Three companies make up over 90% of the US market share around voting systems, and like any company, they're priorities aren't always aligned with the public's. Dive into the industry of voting machines in this investigation piece from the Guardian.

Many budget airlines rely on baggage charges and other extra fees to make money.

As of 2025, the US and Qatar dominate global helium production

The US's 42.6% share includes helium imported from Canada and refined within the states. Geopolitical conflicts can cause supply disruptions that impact several advanced technologies, including semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace systems, and medical imaging.

Visa, the first credit card network, still dominates competitors with a roughly 52% market share by purchase volume.

Among the major credit card companies in the US, Mastercard had about 25% of the market share in 2025. American Express had roughly 20%, and Discover had the smallest market share of about 4%.

The world is shifting from unipolarity toward a multipolar order

The post-Cold War world was briefly unipolar after 1991, with the US standing alone as a global superpower following decades of US-Soviet bipolarity. Analysts increasingly describe today's order as multipolar, with China, Russia, the US, and regional powers all competing for influence.

The number of publicly traded companies has decreased in recent years.

In 1996, more than 7,300 companies traded publicly on US stock markets, but that number has recently dropped to 4,300. Economists point to two reasons: First, going public requires full disclosure of operations, exposing it to scrutiny from investors, competitors, and analysts. Second, the IPO process is expensive and time-consuming.

Listen to an account of an 'airplane game' leader, a notorious, widespread illegal pyramid scheme that swept across the US in the 1980s.

Southwest Airlines was profitable for nearly 5 decades, offering free whisky, cheap late-night tickets, and free-for-all seating allocation—despite how hard it is to make money running an airline.

'Startups' can be defined as small, early-stage companies that are designed to grow fast.

See the US industries with the highest union membership rates.

The wealthiest Americans own the vast majority of the stock market

Recent data from the Federal Reserve shows that the richest people in America own 93% of all the country's stock—the highest level ever recorded. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of Americans held just 1% of all stocks.

Billionaires are racing to space to control future markets

Although different companies have described focuses ranging from luxury tourism to Martian space colonies, all are building infrastructure to capitalize on the shift away from government-only control and betting big on reusability and scale. By securing public contracts and subsidies, they aim to develop strategic partnerships toward dominance in low Earth orbit.

Dual-class stock structures separate equity and decision-making authority

In the past few decades, dual-class stock structures have become an increasingly popular way for companies to raise capital in public markets without allocating traditional shareholder voting rights. Meta, Estée Lauder, and The New York Times are companies that are famously dual-class.

American local government comes in five distinct forms

Counties, municipalities, townships, special districts, and school districts are each created for a different purpose, operating under different rules, and answerable to the state in different ways. Special districts, the least known of the group, are created for specific purposes, such as transit or fire protection.

Understanding why the US can't use its own crude oil and depends on global markets

Before advancements in fracking technology made lighter shale oil readily available, US refineries had been built and optimized for decades to process heavier oil from other countries with high profitability. Despite being able to refine lighter oil, US oil companies can operate with better margins by exporting it to other nations whose refineries are optimized for it and importing heavier oil, for which the US has the infrastructure.

Standard Oil used vertical integration to create an empire

“Vertical integration” is a modern business phrase that refers to a company taking on multiple stages of production—but John D. Rockefeller pioneered it with his Standard Oil company, employing its own plumbers and handling its own oil transportation.

Federal systems are a minority among the United Nations' 193 members

Of the United Nations' 193 member countries, roughly two dozen use a federal system, dividing power constitutionally between national and subnational governments. This group includes the United States, India, Canada, Germany, and more. The video walks through examples of how these states operate.

The US air traffic control system is safe but due for major technological updates

On any given day, over 3 million passengers fly on roughly 45,000 flights in the US. Flying today is safer than ever, but air traffic controllers deal with outdated technology that can interfere with pilot communication.

Jet fuel is expensive—which is one reason why it's tough to make an airline profitable

Jet fuel is typically a commercial airline's second-largest expense, second only to labor. Oil prices can be volatile—there have been recent significant increases in jet fuel prices given the 2026 Iran conflict, for instance.

Robber barons, the monopolistic business people of the 19th century, explained

“Robber baron” was a term used to describe 19th-century businesspeople who engaged in monopolistic business practices and didn’t face much business regulation, resulting in significant wealth.

Modern antitrust law was created to combat the Standard Oil Trust

John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust enabled him to evade laws against a single corporation buying stock in another. His centralized board of directors held stock in many different oil companies under his control, allowing Rockefeller to eventually monopolize the oil refining industry. Efforts to regulate and prevent the Standard Oil Trust's monopoly became known as "antitrust" laws.

In 2020, the US DOJ sued Google for unlawful monopolization of the search engine market

The US Department of Justice and numerous states accused Google of making exclusionary agreements with Android phone manufacturers to make its search engine the default on those devices, preventing competitors from gaining market share.

Read a breakdown of the different financial and banking regulatory bodies in the US, including the SEC.

Tech giants like SpaceX and Meta are increasingly behaving like sovereign powers

Companies now make unilateral decisions once reserved for nation-states, such as controlling satellite internet access in active war zones and influencing global information flows. Lawmakers and the international order are struggling to keep up with technological developments, let alone regulate them.

See the 25 largest initial public offerings in US history.

These 25 companies—which include UPS, Uber Technologies, AT&T, and The Kraft Heinz Co.—had some of the biggest IPO drops in US history. However, not all these drops led to long-term (or even immediate) success.

The winding journey from Standard Oil to the modern oil industry

Standard Oil’s impact on the business world can be clearly seen today in oil giants like Exxon and Chevron. But the journey from the Rockefellers’ trust to the modern firms was a windy road. After the Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil’s break up, the first step saw it separate into many state-based companies like Standard Oil of California and the Ohio Oil Company. Visualize it here.