<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Doppy:
Well, actually Southwest hasn't managed to do that. They charge pretty low fares, but they do revenue management just like everyone else. Not all of their seats go for the same price; as the planes fill up, the tickets get more expensive.
Sure, they don't get up into the $1000s, like on the majors, but Southwest isn't flying every passenger on their planes for under $200 coast-to-coast.
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Well, of course, you're right - I stand corrected.
What I should have posted was that their revenue management scheme has a range of fares from lowest to moderate, i.e., on those routes where they charge RT $200 per person, they are also charging last-minute flyers, flyers who need fully-refundable tickets, etc., a fare of $600 or so, which is probably half what the lowest business-class fare is.
So, my point is that while they've managed to turn a profit last year while nearly every other airline lost money, it's not because they're charging ANY traveler excessively high fares, but for some other reason(s).
As to this Greg Cable guy, he sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder. Personally, I don't fly business class, but I also don't resent people who do, and who cares what the Leona-Helmsley's of the world are thinking about economy class passengers? They may be right, they may be wrong, it doesn't matter - they are not running the show, and anyway, if you want to avoid business class passengers, as g_leyser said, go FLY Southwest or one of the other no frill carriers. There are plenty of them out there.