Intermediate Microeconomics and Its Application 12th Edition by Walter Nicholson,Christopher Snyder

Exercise 21

Capital and labor are used in fixed proportions to produce an airline flight. It takes two workers (pilots) and one plane to produce a trip. Safety concerns require that every plane has two pilots.
a. Describe the isoquant map for the production of air trips.
b. Suppose an airline rented 10 planes and hired 30 pilots. Explain both graphically and in words why this would be a foolish thing to do.
c. Suppose technical progress in avionic equipment made it possible for a single pilot to handle a plane safely. How would this shift the isoquant map described in part a? How would this affect the average productivity of labor in this industry? How would this affect the average productivity of capital (planes) in this industry?