s0ssos

Huh? You mean tech companies are wrong, and free isn't a great business model?

If you want some objective data:
Google is worth $800 billion. Pulled in $110 billion for the year.

Delta is worth $38 billion. Their earnings? Ah, too much work. Basically just a rounding error.

rjw242

How on earth is Google relevant to this discussion? Did they start an airline in the last day or two that I somehow missed?

Antarius

beats me. Sounds like a odd strawman to state that free is profitable since Google did it.

Dave Noble

Google is not free to its customers, so it is even more flawed

I am not aware of Google just deciding to waive its fees to minor customers just because it would be nice to get its service for free and unfair to have to pay and that the person is doing google a favour by advertising with it

rjw242

Also, hate to break it to certain naive souls here, but Google is by no means "free."

s0ssos

Google is relevant because of your blanket statement that "free" is not a business model.

And about giving free stuff (in the same way google does it): free checked bags, free upgrades, free ...
Hmm, what is that all about?

rjw242

I'm not sure if you're deliberately misconstruing what I said, or pitifully incapable of comprehending it. Either way, a retraction would be appreciated.

perseus11

Actually, the BEST Retraction would be to close this absurd Thread - it was DOA.

mvoight

Why would airlines give up this money? They are filling the planes even with the fees.
The airline's primary mission is to make money for shareholders.

s0ssos

No, because I disagree with you in so many ways (some already addressed).

There are times when a customer can help a business, and both win, but the business refuses. Sometimes it is outright stupid. But yet it is policy. Blind policy. Like what is followed here, and what some say is "brilliance" on AA's part. For example, let's say you want to get a burger at a fast food chain, and don't want the bag. Are you allowed to not get a bag? Maybe not, because it is company policy. But it saves a bag. Usually, though, you just have to take the bag the employee gives you, and then walk two steps and throw it in the trash.
In this situation the customer was willing to move to an earlier flight, which seems beneficial to the airline as it has less "work" to do later, and it is always better to do more earlier, in case something happens later and you don't have time to finish everything (like flight delays, storm rolls in, etc). But the airline says no. Because you have to pay money.
It often seems the airline will cut off its nose to spite its face. I remember flying Alaska out of MSP (Alaska doesn't have many flights if you aren't on the West Coast). A snowstorm was coming, with predicted blizzard amounts of precipitation. The airport had a good probability of being closed. Some passengers had come early to see if they could get on a flight out of there. The agent said there would be a fee.
If you took a poll, most airport employees would bet the airport would be closed. Let's say 75%. So most likely the customers would now be stuck, and Alaska would be stuck trying to get them out (again, because they have like 3 flights, this would be an impossibly difficult situation. Also given they try their hardest not to put them on other carriers).
Ever hear of the phrase an ounce of prevention?

Secondly, you seem to not grasp the concept of goodwill. And the internet.
In the past you can say one consumer means nothing. They have no power. And you probably would have been correct, if it were Joe Schmoe.
But nowadays Joe Schmoe has access to this thing called the internet (I guess you haven't heard of it because you don't know what "google" is). Joe Schmoe can post a comment somewhere. Maybe Flyertalk. And have, oh, 4,000 people read it over the span of a day. And let's say a few of those people decide AA is horrible. Um, 5%? Because, for all the great arguments that the OP is stupid so will just come away thinking AA is horrible, because that is the title, the mos basic TLDR.
And maybe, just maybe, some of those people talk to other people. About how horrible AA is.

Do you doubt that? Look at the damage people do on Yelp with 1 star reviews for things unrelated to the business.
You may think that a big corporation doesn't care. Well, it does. That is why Verizon has a "chief privacy officer". Apparently they care enough about what people think to hire a Sarah Huckabee.

OTD

I have no idea what this means, but it sounds great!

On a case-by-case basis, it MIGHT make more financial sense for an airline to let a specific person move their flight for free. But overall, they've figured out that it will cost them money.

This isn't hard.

JDiver

We are apparently done here, given the OP never returned and this thread has jumped the tracks and some posts are now violating FlyerTalk Rules about keeping FT welcoming, refraining from snark and personal attacks, etc.

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