Originally Posted by
azfanboy
Seems to me the only way for airlines to make this up, would be even higher fares. I cannot imagine how this is sustainable.
Originally Posted by
gold23
Well, any sort of significant labor cost increase is going to trickle to paying customers. Whether it severely impacts the massive current profitability of the airlines is another question (marginally, in all likelihood, but they are doing so well that historically it's almost going to be a rounding error).
Yeah, I always thought fuel-prices was the largest factor; a small change in fuel prices would most likely have a SIGNIFICANTLY larger impact to overall costs of a particular flight than a few employees's salary, IMO.
I don't have a United Airlines or a recent chart, but here's one I found on the internets that is how I always imagined it.
(Likely nowhere near accurate, nor complete, so only included here for illustration purposes)
Salaries make up only a small percentage of overall flight costs:
