NickB

Oh, entirely agreed. Things like aircraft utilisation, maintenance costs, etc... are crucial to the LCC model. But a lot of these things are not compatible with a full service carrier model. LCCs, for instance, keep their maintenance (and aircraft buying) costs down by simplifying their fleet down to, ideally, a single model. This is not something that full service carrier can replicate. If the message is that you have to keep your maintenance (as well as other costs) down and maximise use of your assets, then fine. But that does not tell us much there. And, frankly, this is something that all mainline carriers have learnt from LCCs and have been working on for over a decade.

You stated that AF is learning from DL's experience in fighting LCCs. What we are saying is that, given that US LCCs are very different from European ones, the learning is going to be limited.

If all you mean is that AF has picked up tips and tricks from DL on keeping its costs down on this or that, then fair enough. But let us describe it as it is rather than suggesting that it is learning from the experience of the other in "fighting LCCs" as such. This suggests specific measures related to the LCC model rather than finding ways to keep costs down to remain competitive (not just with LCCs but also other full service carriers).

What some of us would argue is that what is being picked up from DL's LCC experience are things like modular (to use bmi's former terminology) unpackaging of the product to re-sell its components as extras, it might simply not work. If what is being picked up are not LCC-specific things but rather more generic issues on cost control, then fine but the evidence of this is, ummm, not obvious, is it?