FlyerTalk Forums - the future of airlines: the "realized niche"

Like a lot of other people, I saw the current shake-up in FF programs that is underway coming. It just doesn't make good business sense to give the same status to cheap-ticket flyers as expensive business ones. Here's my best guess now to the future of airlines--the "realized niche"

In biology, a realized niche is what species often develop in nature in the quest for survival. In layman's terms, all this means is that species will end up specialized in one particular kind of habitat or foodstuff even if they are capable of surviving in many others. For example, bird A and bird B live in the same forest, and can live all through the trees if need be. However, what ends up happening is that bird A tends to live near the bottom of trees, and bird B at the top, simply because the slightest bit of specialization is all each species needs to guarantee itself some sort of survival, vs. the total gamble of unregulated competition.

How does this translate into airlines? Maybe something like this:

AA with More Room Throughout Coach (MRTC) gains the lion's share of "one flight a year" passengers, particularly those who care a little more about comfort. The same type of passenger who looks for rock-bottom flights takes the discount airlines, as well as one or more of the newly stripped down majors.

On the other hand, one or more of the airlines takes the other ( starboard? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ) tack, and specializes in business passengers. Maybe what we're seeing with Lufthansa's all-business class plane is the beginning of a broader trend: the all-business airline. This airline strives to run on time all the time, pampers its passengers, gives them liberal FF benefits [upgrades, in this case, to a real first class], etc.

What do you think?