Originally Posted by
pbarnette
We shall agree to disagree. Not necessarily on whether DL is going down the wrong path, but that most of us here understand business. I mean, your suggestions are basically: hold the line on FF and in-flight benefits, launch new service during a period of incredibly slack demand, and lower fares when your current ones don't cover your cost of doing business.
The way you make phrase it is slightly misleading. I'm talking about the combined "new delta" (delta/nwa) - you seem to be referencing just the "old delta". Second of all, I'm not suggesting that Delta launches any new services. I'm fine if they keep their routes the way they are or even discontinue those that are not profitable (like every other airline is doing). However, NWA clearly had their fares at a level that made them profitable and financially stronger than most other airlines. Add to that the efficiencies and synergies created by the combined airline with the millions of dollars of savings (that was used as justification for government approval of the merger), which would lead one to believe that they should be financially stronger and in a position to start trickling down these savings to the customers as well. However - they've done the opposite and imposed larger fees on NWA's customer base and raised fares on lanes that they previously competed with NWA on (which there were many - especially if you lived in a non-hub city). Not to sound like a broken record, but those facts would logicially make one to deduce that they are either mis-managing these savings (and the overall merger), or are just being greedy and sticking it to their customer base and testing the waters to see how much they can get away with.