Originally Posted by jsloan

It's misdirection. BE has been a smashing success, although (apparently) somewhat less so than their original rosy predictions.

The entire point of the exercise was to create a product that nobody wanted to buy. Delta saw a sneaky way to raise fares. United copied them, but took it a step further, and then AA copied United. The overhead bin access might get rolled back, but that was the one positive of the system -- a noticeable reduction in the number of bags in the overhead on some fights.

I believe United's stats were that BE represented about 30% of their customers. That is a colossal win for them. Take out, say, 20% of passengers on paid first class or flexible tickets, that leaves you with about half of your customers left who would otherwise have bought the lowest available fare, but who went one level up to avoid BE. In what other context could any business offer such similar products at two different price points and get 50% to opt for the higher one?

As much as I hate it, BE is here to stay.


Source? I have serious doubts that any airline executive thought that charging for bags would save them money. AFAIK, it was done purely as a way to increase revenue and was assumed to be more-or-less cost neutral.


There's a reason that the ULCCs are so profitable. No matter how any of us may feel individually, collectively, this is the product that sells.


More marketing spin. BE never had anything to do with the ULCCs except for airline executives saying "hey, that's smart; let's do that." UA couldn't have been more clear during their rollout; for heaven's sake, they offered Y-BN fares initially.

BE is a fare increase, plain and simple.