That was my original point in starting this thread. CO used to stand out, was exceptional.

Although it still maintains some of its exceptional features (especially its great people), Kellner's influence was to water this down so that CO looks more like all the other legacies than it did when he took over as CEO.

And, as he has morphed the airline into just another mediocre legacy carrier, its financial perfomance has worsened and now mirrors that of the other legacy carriers.

One more note: There is soooo much more that could be done with the airline product, in terms of target marketing the product, monetizing product based on added value (not reduced value), but it's simply stunning how profoundly visionless all these airline managers are.

I can only think of my own business, broadcasting. I came into the industry in the 80's, at the tail end of its so-called glory days. It's horrifying to see how far network TV has fallen in that time and how deeply uninnovative and narrow most network management has been in all that time.

While some have engaged in a certain-to-fail race to the bottom with reality TV and talk shows in primetime, one man, the great Leslie Moonves, has stood out. Not only has he retained audiences with great programming, he's made a mint doing it.

As long as you're giving people garbage, garbage it what you'll get back in return.

It's a lot harder to take risks, break the mold, spend money to make money than to just follow the fold, lemming-like, and declare you're a genius because you're charging customers to check bags.