Okay, I generally agree: airlines need to maintain pricing power. The question is how. Right now, the paradigm is high price + bad product with pricing power maintained exclusively by pulling supply out of the system.

Hardly seems strategic, although I get why it's a current tactic.

All I'm saying is that it's not going to just "happen" without any action by the airlines. They're going to have to invest something back into the product if they ever intend to grow again and still maintain pricing power.

It's sort of ironic that the one U.S. airline that hasn't really degraded its product significantly over the past decade is Southwest. The airline once considered to be a "no frills" carrier no offers the most "frills" of all for domestic travel. (Big jets, checked bags, point-to-point flights, ability to change tickets, etc.) The things we used to hold up as examples of legacy differentiation - F cabins, lounges - have become so degraded that their value is almost completely gone.