Originally Posted by RASMguy
Not competitive? Don't forget that Southwest and JetBlue operate Transcons from Seattle and Indy Air is planning on serving SEA too. When our fares and traffic mix reflect the leisure market, we truly compete with the low cost carrier market. So an enhanced Biz class is very attractive when you look at who we compete with. Besides, many people comment here already that they have elite status on other carriers and fly on them Transcon; mainly due to the lack of comp upgrades.
The legacy carrier model is broken, US-Bankrupt, UA-Bankrupt, DL-nearly bankrupt. JetBlue and Southwest-Profitable. If we can create a product that is a real cut above the latter, we're a step ahead.
So would we really be any less competitive then today?
Yes. AS offers a substandard pricing model when compared to the LCC's. With respect to WN, AS is much more expensive with walkup fares and doesn't offer nearly the flexibility that WN does (i.e. no change fees and all ticket $ not used can be used later on multiple trips). I know you have repeatedly stated that AS matches WN's fares in each market but I haven't found that to be the case with last-minute fares. I recently had to change an MCO-PDX one way Y class ticket to a MCO-OAK one way ticket with less than 24 hours notice. The total fare for the new MCO-OAK ticket was in the $500 range whereas WN only wanted $299. I took AS anyway because there was an upgrade available on the flight I wanted. Indeed, if there was no U but there was F, I would have bought an F ticket and just paid the difference out of my own pocket (this was a business trip). If there was no F, AS would not have been competitive.