The argument concerns whether deregulation of the airline industry has disadvantaged consumers. The industry representative argues that when large airlines abandoned less profitable routes, smaller regional airlines moved in resulting in more flights in most smaller regional airports. To effectively address the consumer activist's point, the industry representative's claim needs to assume that a policy that resulted in having more flights offered by smaller regional airlines cannot be said to hurt consumers as (C) correctly points out. If we negate (C) and this assumption is no longer true, the mere fact that the policy resulted in more accessible flights on regional airlines would not be enough to refute the consumer activist's claim that the policy has disadvantaged everyone not in the vicinity of a major metropolitan airport.