Originally Posted by orbitmic

As brunos already mentioned, U2 has already become an increasingly preferable choice for non-flex tickets for a number of reasons: tickets are typically significantly cheaper, all tickets are changeable, free same-day earlier return (albeit with much less frequency than AF), seats can be selected for a low fee, on time performance is significantly better, hand luggage weight is unlimited which is not the case with AF, and soon, EU regulations will kick in that will make U2 obliged to accept a small personal item in addition to the hand luggage, etc. To me, AF continues to take things away from passengers without either giving anything in return. It claims that it does so because economically, it does not have a choice, but it also makes it obvious that it is not ready to make any effort on its own side to reduce non-passenger-service-related costs. This is smug at best, unrealistic in all likeliness, and personally, I have no doubt that this will continue to come round to bite them in the backside, and it will all be their own fault.