Originally Posted by
channa
Actually companies are in the business of creating value for their shareholders, not necessarily their customers. Customers may be happy when they perceive they get a good value, which results in repeat customers which drives shareholder value. That is why Costco and WN tend to do well, when in fact they are very often not the most economical. There are cheaper ways to buy toilet paper than Costco, and WN is seldom the cheapest option out there. But people think they are, so that's where they go.
As for CO, it seems your concern is that CO would somehow dilute their image if they sold the simluator time. I guess it depends on how they market it. After all, CO owns a catering company, and most people don't even know it, because it's not something they go after regular consumers with. Though in the airline industry, many people know this (and some other airlines use Chelsea for their needs).
Selling simulator time to enthusiasts or high-end clientele wouldn't exactly turn CO into Six Flags. I'm sure they could target their audience appropriately without damaging CO's image. After all, marketing is one of the things CO does rather well. And of all U.S. airlines, they are probably the most sensitive to this issue.
Not only that. Let's remember that UA, as well as Lufthansa, used to have it available to the public who could pay for it in $ or in miles before 9/11. I don't think it was that well known. My friend and I flew to Frankfurt because we didn't know about UA in Denver, and he was a UA flyer. Had we known about it, we would've flown to Denver instead. Not sure how well Lufthansa (sorry, don't know their abbreviation) was publicizing it, but I read about it in Travel and Leisure, I think. The co-pilot was very tolerant of us after we learned how the computer set-up worked and started changing flight conditions to test one another. (He's the only person I've ever heard of who's flown into Kuwait during blackout blizzard conditions; there was no sandstorm setting; he landed successfully, though there was a little bit of hydroplaning at touchdown.)
We both came away very favorably disposed towards Lufthansa, but it's just not a convenient airline for either of us US-based travelers. But I did fly CO to Frankfurt or Berlin when I had to fly someplace in Europe that CO didn't fly to directly in order to fly Lufthansa from there. FWIW.
Also, without pilot licenses, another friend and I flew in the Alteon flight simulator in Miami about 2 years ago. There was Homeland Security clearance required beforehand. However, the Alteon co-pilot was less prepared to let us set up the parameters for flying, and the available airports, as I wrote above, were extremely few in the computer memory.