As I creep back toward Elite qualification with my measly 50% points on the mile, travelling from YVR to attend board meetings throughout the land (always on the weekend) of a non-profit association, I keep asking myself "How can these guys be losing so much money?".

Almost every flight I've been on this year has been full or almost so, and even using seat sale prices, AC is charging more than WestJet which does seem to be doing OK.

The answer that always comes back to me is that the management has to be bad, bad bad. Can there be any other reason???

Fixed high costs are killing AC:labour costs; payments to service high debt load;

Thought this would maybe explain a little what might be going on in management...
The Peter Principle was first introduced by L. Peter in a humoristic book (of the same title) describing the pitfalls of bureaucratic organization. The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower position. The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people.

Re: The Peter Principle

Well put! Sounds like Telus to boot!