Originally Posted by
jasondc
The one problem is this- airlines these days are under pressure to maintain capacity discipline. Airline in the past have gotten into trouble by bulking up with larger fleets, marginal hubs, etc to gain share. That has led to the losses we have seen.
These days, airlines are trying something different. Rather than be out there to serve every customer, they are being more disciplined. They've come to the conclusion that they don't need to go after all the traffic- through cPacity discipline, they only need to go after the best customers. Time will tell in the long run whether this works, but UA and DL have seen great results in the last year...
It's a fascinating and complex subject. Who knows, but IMO the carriers have gone a bit overboard in their focus on yields/capacity. They've had a favorable tailwind for the last couple of years, and they've been buying some short term revenue at the expense of long term customer sat (revenue?). It will be interesting to see what happens, JSMI indicated in an interview that they're going to be doing a lot more in terms of targeted marketing (i.e. price discrimination). IMHO, there is a lot of money to be made that way if they can get away with it politically. (When the railroads tried it 150 years ago, they ended up with the ICC.)