Originally Posted by
dls25
I personally think B6 will eventually end up dropping the carryon restriction for Basic fares or scale basic fares back to select markets with heavy ULCC competition . Their network has too much overlap with DL/AA for this to work and they don't have the scale of UA to be able to forge their own way. I have been booking DL over B6 despite being an AA elite for this very reason - DL has been cheaper even before the bag considerations.
As for the Embraer issue, DL/AA have tons of E175's with similar overheads and manage to make it work.
I also think the carry-on restriction on B6 will not last. Collecting the additional payment leads to too many delays at the gate and missed expectations. UA has Basic Economy customers without checked bags check in with an agent so they can verify they don't have a full-size carry on; jetBlue has mostly kiosk check in.
I think BE is here to stay though, even though I think it's a terrible way to treat customers on a legacy carrier.