Originally Posted by
ryan182
And yet for the past couple years they have followed their competitors (primarily DL) religiously. Yes I'm sure they have a cost/benefit internally but that was my point, competitive pressures will outweigh those internal costs but when they get the opportunity (aka DL/UA does it first) AA will happily follow suit. To be clear, this isn't necessarily a complaint; minimizing costs in response to changes in the competitive landscape is a logical thing to do. I'm just not naive enough to think that this, or any other change, is going to be to my benefit. When the next economic downturn occurs and the airlines are hurting we will be courted again, until then they will give as little as possible.
The irony here is that not cutting could be used a selling point to make a case for booking them vs the other guy. WN does it all the time with the free bags, no change fees, etc. I think it's been quite successful for them. They're probably gaining business even with the higher costs vs the others who charge for the same thing.
The bottom line is that none of them want to take the risk of upsetting shareholders who are counting beans and only care about this quarter's profits vs a longer view. Standing out and being different isn't viewed as a plus but a cost, and that's a big problem IMO.