Originally Posted by
Often1
Anyone can fill an aircraft by selling seats cheap enough. But, that's a bad business model. Just ask the carriers who invested in the A380. Need cold hard data to demonstrate that by increasing capacity and adding to the hard & soft product, one can increase PRASM. If it doesn't increase PRASM, it's not worth the extra hot towels.
There is, of course, a luxury market, but history suggests that it is not that large in the leisure sector. The business sector may recover by 2024, but there is a lot of thinking that a good chunk of that is flying Air Zoom for a long time to come.
I, too, was about to make a similar point. The 747 and A380 are essentially gone, replaced by the 773 and A350 as the biggest in anyone's fleet (or soon will be). Part of the issue (IMHO only) is smaller aircraft have become so much more efficient. We've come a long way from 727s on short to mid range flights and 707s on mid to long range flights. Remember when NW flew 747s and DC10s ORD-TPA? UA even advertised their ORD-CLE service as "all DC-10".