The CEO of Continental recently gave a speach and stated his airline is thinking about charging for things that most people now take for granted. He thinks the flying public can be broken down into two different groups, those that want rock bottom fares and those that will pay more for something extra. Polls state that nobody cares for airline food but the problem is these polls are taken when people are not hungry. In the future, Continental and other airlines may nothing but a seat on rock bottom fares. The higher fares would get meals, frequent flyer miles and other services that people value.

The question is would you pay more for your ticket to earn ff miles and if so how much more?

In 1968 United had First Class (F), Coach (Y) and Jet Economy Coach (K) fares on the larger A/C they flew at the time (DC-8s and B-720s). The F and Y fares included meals, K class did not include meals. The K fares were then priced about 10% below Y. Having 2 classes of coach travel might be the way to go about it again which would allow passengers a choice between a full service coach with meals and a lower cost option without meals. Also, the F & Y fares during that time included advance seat assignment and the K fare did not.
The other lower cost fare option which was available at that time on most airlines was the FN or YN fares. Those were fares below the regular F and Y fares on certain routes for flights departing after 9 PM.

Sure, I'd pay $5, maybe $10 if it was the quality of a FC meal.

$50 dinner surcharge? $75? $100? That's probably what he's thinking.

I'm not interested in buying airline tickets using menus and that's what this amounts to. It smacks of undisclosed parking fees and "resort charges" at hotels. Just another way of raising the revenue without disclosing until you're already there. Lenders loose their licenses for this practice.

I can see it now. Choose your seat for X, the meal for $12, water/coffee is $2, and a pillow and blanket for $6. Please check the boxes when you order your ticket and have a pleasant flight.

Nope. However if it does happen, the first thing I'll start doing is changing seats in coach.

What do you mean by 'changing seats in coach?'

I would probably not be willing to pay for the miles...isn't that already built in to the price anyway? I would be willing to pay more for meals; actually, keep the lousy food charge me less.

I'd also be willing to pay more to not have the chatty guy sitting next to me, or the kicker behind me, or the guy that assumes he can swap seats with me before I even get on board. That'd be a good 'menu' of tickets to have for me.

Hi there,
This is already happening with some of the low cost and charter airlines in Europe. As examples:

A menu with your ticket:
http://www.cafe-buzz.com/

Charges to pre-book a seat:
http://www.jmc.com/get_away/preparin...ht/seats.shtml
(Doesn't actually give you a cost but it isn't free!)


Personally, this is why I try not to fly with these airlines, but it's already starting.

Shudder...

Jason

Dingo: What is being hinted at is not giving miles at all on the super cheap fares. You would have to buy into a higher fare class to get the miles. . .not a good sign.

To some extent I do feel as though I pay more for miles. I could fly a charter or Aloha to Hawaii, for instance, for far less than I pay to fly UA, but I wouldn't be getting my status miles.

As for food, I try to bring my own anyway because the airlines aren't too good at meeting my needs. So if they want to reduce their fares by the few bucks I save them by skipping their meal service that would be OK by me.

Paying to earn FF miles or more FF miles? Before yes, now no. FF programs are now too unreliable to pay for miles. TTN are, for my purposes (but not others, maybe), a waste unless you can redeem the miles immediately.

Pay for a meal? Maybe. It would encourage me to always bring food. The airlines would then have to price the meal so that some food would be unsold and thrown away. Price the meal too high and not many would buy. Price it too low and the cost of accounting and yield management is too great. I have upgraded to get a meal (in essence, buying the meal).

If they go through with this do not expect the price of tickets to go down if you do not want miles or your meal. The lowest current fares would be what you would pay for nothing but transportation. This is the same sort of thinking that has started the no standby rule's on the cheapest fares.

Knowing how many meals to provide would be easy since the cheapest fares would need to be booked far in advance, and the higher fares would include meal service.

Some airlines offer a bistro service, where you select the food you want just prior to boarding. This eliminates a lot of waste and also the extra weight of food that won't be used. I think this is something US carriers should at least consider.

The idea of miles didn't start because people were clamoring for them. It started because the airlines, first AA and then the others, saw them as a way to lock in frequent travelers. It worked.

If the airlines stop giving us miles, or if the miles cost more than each of us subjectively thinks they're worth, goodbye lock-in. Absent AA (in my case) miles and the benefits that go with earning a bunch of them each year, my incentive to put all my flying on AA goes down a lot. Not to zero, I still like them and their services fit my travel needs, but a lot. I don't think AA wants to take the risk of that happening. (I don't mean with me, they could survive losing me as a customer, but across the board with all the people who are similarly situated.)

I also see situations where companies will not reimburse business travelers for the added cost of miles, since the company gets no benefit from them (and may suffer because of them, since they often motivate travelers to travel in ways that are not optimal in cost and/or schedule from a business point of view). Including "free" miles in more expensive tickets addresses some of this problem but not all of it, since business travelers don't always pay high fares.

The bottom line is that airlines give miles because it's smart marketing. I don't think they'll stop.

If a decent meal was $5-10 (maybe $15-20 in FC) on a long flight, I would certainly consider it. Would really depend on what you would get. Are we talking about a sandwich and chips? I can buy that in the airport and save myself a few bucks over what the airlines are likely to charge. I have to imagine that most leisure travelers, the folks who only fly a few times a year yet represent the bulk of passengers on any given flight, would bring their own food.

"Oh, sorry, but we don't have your meal or pillow today. You'll have to stand in line to inquire about a refund when we land."