bigpoppi

What's Really Wrong With The Airline Industry - And Can It Be Fixed?

To all of you that keep talking about low fare vs legacy carriers, let me just say this. In the US you have two different airline models. You have the low fare, Southwest, Air Tran, Jetblue, Frontier, etc. Then you have the big boys, American, United, Delta/Northwest, Continental, etc. Now let me ask one question. Out of all of the people that fly everyday in this country, how many can the low fare carriers take? Go ahead, think about it, I'll wait. ANSWER Combined,they can't carry everybody. They can't even fly half of the people. So why do we keep worrying about what they do? The big boys just need to price their product to cover costs and make a profit, bring back customer service, get rid of these BS fees and charges, free food, etc. Then watch what happens. You'll be surprised at how many people will be more than willing to pay more money for a better product. And I'm not talking about the dirty t-shirt, holy jeans & flip flop wearing, use a grocery bag as my carry on luggage people. Let the low fare guys have the Greyhound people. I'm telling you, people want good service and quality for their money and are willing to pay for it. You can't buy a Saturn and expect a Mercedes-Benz ride. Why can't these execs see this. I'll tell you why. Because they don't care. That's why, plain and simple. They have been shown the comments by the passengers and they keep listening to some idiot in a cubicle that hasn't heard what the passengers are saying or have a clue as to what goes on at airports. But yet the suits keep listening to this fool instead of their own employees who see and hear this everyday as part of their job. RAISE THE DAMN FARES.

Why Airline Mergers Don't Work

I've been in this business on and off for the last 23 years and in my opinion (for whatever it's worth), you have more corporate suits and less actual airline vets running these airlines right into the ground. Instead of cutting back on labor and laying people off, they need to use the people to their advantage. Trim the fat where you need to, ie (VP of Food Tasting and other BS jobs like that one) and figure out ways to make money. Just because you cut back and save some money, you're
not creating any new revenue. So what they need to do is find ways to make money and stop cutting back to bare bones, making less people do more work for less money while they get bonuses for wrecking the airline, unless they're going to take less money and do more (PHYSICAL work). Now we know that's not gonna happen. Bottom line is, even if you cut back to bare bones, you're not making money. You're saving what you already have. Create new ways to make more money. This is how your profit margin goes up.