Originally Posted by
cieligne
Very cool is probably another way of saying "people want to fly there".
Delta seems to be flying places that are both "cool" or not so cool, but they have figured out where people want to fly and where they will pay and its paying off for them big time.
Some airlines (i.e. AA) are so conservative that their consideration set never really gets into the mind of consumers and that they might actually find it "cool" to go someplace new.
If AA flew to CPT for example, I'd think it would be "pretty cool" and I would fly there in a heartbeat because I've been wanting to go there. Not enough though to jump through hoops flying over Heathrow or not even enough to fly on South African Airways. No saying they aren't a fine airline, but I think the point the poster is making is that there are destinations that would become part of AA customers consideration set if only they flew there (places like HKG and SYD come to mind).
If you can get there on your preferred carrier (and maybe they do a vacation package thing, ot it gets some press in NYT Travel section as one of the carriers that can get you somewhere exotic for example) then sure, why not try a few cool places.
The old standbys don't seem to be doing much for AA these days. They can only milk the non-cool or semi-cool places (the so called "business markets") so much before that milk runs dry.
Cool places like AMS, MUC, LIS, CPT and on and on.. exist and AA doesn't even consider flying there. So yeh, AA could use to up its "cool" factor. Why not.
When your customers see you as some old greybeard or bluehair airline, and your customers are too stuffy and don't believe that anything can or should be cool (a la JetBlue) then they might as well fold up the wings and go home because a company that doesn't try to stay interesting (another word for cool I suspect) is on the road to irrelevancy.
GM didn't ever see the need to make "cool" cars, Sears didn't believe in cheap, "cool" clothes.
IBM and other PC makers can't figure out how to make "cool" stuff people want to buy.
I think thats where cool IS relevant to an airline, because it is a consumer business. And experience shows that consumers do in fact want some level of cool and relevancy in their products and services.
So it was not a dumb comment in my opinion. I think it was quite insightful in its simplicity.
Rather than getting into a diatribe about your unwarranted criticism of AA, unrealistic expectations of AA, and lack of an understanding as to the incredibly difficult economics of the airline industry I'll point out that guess what? DL did choose to fly to CPT (from both JFK and ATL depending on the day of the week). And guess what? The route failed!!!!
Sure CPT is a cool destination. South Africa in general is an awesome place. But guess what, the economics of the route didn't add up and DL canceled it. I saw that one coming. Flew there in the middle of peak season in the Business Elite cabin and it was half empty in both directions.
Oh and airlines don't base their decisions to fly somewhere based on inspriing people to fly somewhere. Sure that may work for a very small segment of the market. But its the discounted economy class fare paying market that fills the back of the bus on off days at rock-bottom fares, not the crowd that makes a route profitable.
Long-haul international routes are profitable because of F/J demand and some cargo. Y may be some icing on the cake in the few markets where there is still some Y fare premium but its not the driver. And business travelers don't fly somewhere because its cool. They fly somewhere because they have to.