I think the majority of Americans expect to travel from A to B for $99 or as close to it as possible. Airlines can't afford service, the majority in the front end are on upgrades. They are simply catering to the unwashed huddled masses.

I have just one datapoint that exemplifies a lot for me regarding US vs. 'other' airlines in the international market.

Last fall I didn't pay enough attention. I booked on UA SFO-PEK (because of alliance and E+). No significant price difference on dates/the route to tempt me to fly another airline. 11+ hours with overhead monitors? Are you kidding me?

Flew another itinerary, EWR-DEL. This time I checked. I'd flown the route 4 years earlier on CO and it had been great (in Y). I booked on UA, with IFE. Again, no significant price difference with other carriers to tempt me anyway. Tiny little IFEs, 9-channels on some kind of taped loop - when the longest 'channel' finished, the whole system was 'rewound' (FA's choice of words). That's aside from the fact that the offerings were the usual UA stuff - over half were children's movies (I have never seen an international flight made up of over half children).

If UA is going to put these lame products on international longhauls, one would think there would at least be a discount in the Y fare to reflect the seriously lame product offering.

Not so different than the rest of the world, really. While US legacy airlines might have suffered more service declines than European legacy airlines, let's not forget that when it comes to truly crap bargain basement start-up airlines, Europe is a world-beater!

If they meant per capita then I'd agree with them: per capita, Americans don't travel much compared to their counterparts. What is it, less than 5% of Americans hold passports? Compare that to, say, Australia (65%) or Japan (~48%) or Germany (50% IIRC).

Yes, it's a generalization, but Americans simply aren't as well travelled compared to the populations of many countries. Read into that from there what you will.

I'm waiting for the day when Singapore or Cathay buys out United or American Glory be to service with a smile.

Could you imagine the terror amongst the other US legacy carriers at the prospect of having to raise their service levels so far?!

Seriously,

They'd freak. Our service decline began when PanAm tried to become a domestic carrier. When we only had TWA and PanAm on international the routes were almost at the top level of service. I think domestic service was better too when it was separate from International.

I recall Braniff served South America but not sure how big of an operation that might have been.

According to the state department they have issued 134,603,611 passports between 2002-2012. That is more than 1/3 of all Americans with passports.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/ppi...stats_890.html

There are more American passport holders than there are people in France, Germany or Great Britain.

I think the statistic you want is passports in circulation, farther down on the page, which is 113,431,943.

Fair enough, still more Americans with passports than there are people in the three largest countries in Europe.

"Per capita" hard concept for you?

Not many Chinese have passports, but 5% of 1.3 billion dwarfs the US numbers too. Want to argue that makes them more well travelled?

You might want to rework that claim too. 208+ million for Germany, France, and the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_population

Might want to read what I wrote. I never said "combined". Despite the common misconception of some people there are over 100 million Americans with passports, and that is far more than 5% or 10% that many claim.

Seriously?

I don't think American carriers are declining, I think foreign carriers are catching up.

Years ago, PanAm flew around the world (or close to it). You could fly anywhere with PanAm. Even later on, American carriers flew to many foreign destinations. If you wanted to fly to Australia or New Zealand not too long ago, United was your best bet.

But now, foreign carriers have upped their game. They are flying directly into the US, not only to JFK and LAX, but second-tier cities as well. For example, United quit flying to NZ after Air NZ came in. Most US carriers abandoned India after European (and later Middle Eastern) carriers increased frequency and started providing good connections. Americans are increasingly comfortable flying on foreign carriers. Rather than trying to serve the world, US carriers are now settling into their niche.

A similar thing happened with manufacturing. Once upon a time, Boeing virtually monopolized the large passenger aircraft market. Then Airbus came in and Boeing's share started falling. This doesn't represent the decline of Boeing, but rather then success of Airbus.