Flying in the early days, airlines were in competition with bus and rail service. Bus for local and regional travel, rail for regional and cross country. In order to compete airlines started serving free snacks, meals and drinks. However in the 1960's airlines lobbied congress to exempt airlines from liquor laws, so that alcohol could be sold, under the auspices of controlling the passengers demand for alcohol. As rail service declined, and bus travel got a bad reputation, the airlines decided that they could now start charging for more and more, and introduced additional fees. This also led to airlines to deliberately over book flights in order to meet minimum sales to pay for the cost of that flight. This led to the end of stand-by tickets.