Originally Posted by TWA Fan 1

My point was actually the opposite, namely that as the industry's historic retrenchment into lowered expectations was well under way, CO remained steadfast in its exceptionalism. On paper, this policy surely cost them a few bucks, but it paid handsomely in a well-deserved reputation for superior service.

It is only under Kellner's leadership, and most markedly at the end of his tenure, that this commitment was dropped. I agree, though, that it is highly unlikely that we will ever see a revival of CO's exceptionalism.

Perhaps the clearest indication of the wrongheadedness of this approach is in the numbers. Throughout the Bethune era and at the beginning of the Kellner era, CAL always exceeded average industry performance, even if it lost money.

Now that Kellner has morphed the product into an essentially indistinguishable version of the average mediocre legacy carrier product, CAL results have dropped and are squarely in the middle of the pack.

Of course, there are many explanations possible for this drop in performance, but it should not be surprising that mediocre product would result in mediocre financial results.

Finally, in the post-Lehman era, all legacy carriers that depend heavily on premium-class travellers for their profitability have suffered, CO included. It is indeed no surprise that carriers such as B6 and WN are doing the best (although even WN is losing money), since their business model does not depend on premium class customers.

In this climate, just imagine how CAL might have done better if they had aggressively retained some elements of their exceptionalism, especially in the economy cabin? Instead, as blakefish and sbm12 and others have pointed out, CO's Y is just another legacy product, essentially indistinguishable from any other.

Again, a mediocre product will result in mediocre results.

Not only did it not have to turn out this way, but I believe CO delivered itself a tremendous blow in the race to the bottom it conducted under Kellner.