What happened? Why did air travel go from a glamorous experience to nearly hellish?
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Airline behavior is completely rational given the existing profit motive and the massive regulatory changes in the US airline industry over the past 40 years. They aren't a charity, and they aren't a public utility or service.
And they're pricks about making money. The rationale that you can do anything at all if it makes you a profit is the most appalling thing about the corporate world.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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I agree.
That said, it's easy to play armchair quarterback on the sidelines, but it's far more difficult to actually do it in a market where the feds allow merger after merger and some of the competition is financed at least in part by foreign governments.
I remember people in rec.travel.air telling us all the time that they could do a better job. Right.
Let's play a game. If you ran an airline, if all of your competition was playing hardball in order to make a profit, and if your main expenses were things like fuel, personnel costs, and equipment ... what would you do differently?
How would you introduce a better service element into your operation? And how would you pay for it?
Disclaimer: I've been active in airline industry IT for over 25 years (including 10 years with a US major in Flight Ops, and 12 more with a multinational airline industry IT firm), and I admit personally have no clue how I could do a better job. I'm not an airline expert ... I'm a software developer ... but I do appreciate the largely hidden layers of complexity underlying a typical major airline operation.
Of course every airline wants to make money. As any other company wants to do. With current fuel prices, they are doing quite well, but in general the airline business is not the most profitable business, given all the high fixed costs such as fuel, staff, leasing/depreciation on flight equipment, maintenance... and it is one of the most regulated business actually existing. You always get what you pay for: Expensive ticket: good service. Cheap ticket: cheap service. If you are willing to pay much, nowadays everything is possible. Just take a look at Etihad airlines residence suite or the first class lounges around the world.
Safety discussion is obsolete. The most dangerous part of every flight is the ride to the airport in your own car.
That said, it's easy to play armchair quarterback on the sidelines, but it's far more difficult to actually do it in a market where the feds allow merger after merger and some of the competition is financed at least in part by foreign governments.
I remember people in rec.travel.air telling us all the time that they could do a better job. Right.
Let's play a game. If you ran an airline, if all of your competition was playing hardball in order to make a profit, and if your main expenses were things like fuel, personnel costs, and equipment ... what would you do differently?
How would you introduce a better service element into your operation? And how would you pay for it?
Disclaimer: I've been active in airline industry IT for over 25 years (including 10 years with a US major in Flight Ops, and 12 more with a multinational airline industry IT firm), and I admit personally have no clue how I could do a better job. I'm not an airline expert ... I'm a software developer ... but I do appreciate the largely hidden layers of complexity underlying a typical major airline operation.
Take yoga and gymnastics so you can fit in the 12 inch wide seats better.
Thanks for the caption to the slide for hack #1.
(Of course there's no such thing as a 12" wide airplane seat so there is that.)
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