Less Galley Space More Seats

[FWAAA]

The cost of buying yourself beverages or snacks or blankets, etc., to bring on the plane is not the problem. The problem is the logistics of carrying all that stuff on yourself.

In a movie theater, even on a bus, it's just a lot easier to bring your own supplies. With the Terrorism Support Agency making things difficult, along with aircraft cabins that are more cramped than a bus, it's just not realistic to expect passengers to be able to bring everything they need for a long-ish flight.

On a short-haul flight (same flight times as intra-Europe), OK, it's no big deal to cater nothing. But not on a transcon flight.

[post="259674"][/post]​

Damn, JS - did you hack my login?



I agree 100%. I'm willing to pay ala carte for all my food and beverages, I just don't want to schlep them all over with me everywhere I go when I travel. Water and soda is heavy, and I'm not in the desert, so I shouldn't have to be my own pack mule. I'm willing to pay the airline to break their backs catering to me.

 

[Buck]

Damn, JS - did you hack my login?



I agree 100%. I'm willing to pay ala carte for all my food and beverages, I just don't want to schlep them all over with me everywhere I go when I travel. Water and soda is heavy, and I'm not in the desert, so I shouldn't have to be my own pack mule. I'm willing to pay the airline to break their backs catering to me.

[post="259683"][/post]​

Now if we could just get the customer to be willing to pay for the fluctuation of the price of jet fuel?

 

[FWAAA]

Now if we could just get the customer to be willing to pay for the fluctuation of the price of jet fuel?

[post="259889"][/post]​

End the life of some of the terminally ill competitors flooding the domestic legacy market with lots of cheap seats and customers would HAVE to pay more to fly.

The cost of inputs has nothing to do with how much people are willing to pay to fly from A to B. How much more does a new 777 cost than the first 707 purchased by AA? 50 times more expensive? 100 times more expensive? Tickets sure don't cost 50 or 100 times what they did in 1959. Nor should they.

The amount people will pay depends on how many or few options there are. Eliminate UAL and USAir (and maybe Flyi while you're at it) and there would be fewer options. Yes, eventually, WN and B6 could replace all the lost capacity, but that's the future. What matters is AA's survival NOW. And survival requires that capacity be reduced.

Last night the family went to dinner after seeing a late matinee. We went to a nice place and spent about 10 times more than we could have spent if we'd bought Happy Meals. People do that every day. And some people are willing to do it when they fly. It's just that there aren't enough of those people to keep AA, UA, DL, CO, NW and US in business profitably. But there may be enough of those people to keep 3 or 4 of those companies in business profitably even with $56/bbl oil.