[blockquote]
----------------
On 1/18/2003 2
45 PM KCFlyer wrote:
I still believe that code shares are little more than smoke and mirrors that will allow 3 airlines to lose money together. AA doesn't need a codeshare, especially a domestic code share.
----------------
[/blockquote]
Correct you are. Code shares mitigate exactly
none of the reasons the cartel airlines are hemorhaging red ink. If anything, they tend to
contribute to the bleeding.
First, codeshares do not create new passengers; they may to some degree cause a customer to choose airline X
instead of airline Y in certain situations, but it also works the other way in other instances to the extent of no net gain for either.
Secondly, codeshares do absolutely nothing to address the issue that more than any other is sinking the hub-and-spoke airlines -- anemic yields resulting from the ongoing revolt of business travelers fed up with being targeted for unconscionable fleecing. Codeshares do absolutely nothing to make customers willing to pay more.
And if the carriers involved suppose they can jack up fares by colluding to manipulate capacity in the markets they share (as appears to be at or near the top of their codeshare agenda)... history has shown that such scheming ultimately backfires on the perpetrators (did someone say low-cost competition?).
Codesharing
adds to costs in ways that are difficult to measure. Untold human resources are spent on keeping up with what the partners are doing and even more so in either passing the buck (the preferred approach) when problems occur in codeshare operations or being in the place where (when the buck can no longer be passed) one becomes unavoidably entangled in customer service/operational/marketing issues caused by one of the partners. As if each of the airlines doesn't have more than enough details to tend to in running their
own show smoothly.
My advice to AA: if you intend to imitate Southwest in no other way, at least copy their sound judgment in steering clear of domestic code-sharing. It's worked for them and it will work just as well for AA -- one thing AA
doesn't need is the baggage created by codeshares added to the unbearable weight of the baggage by which you are already encumbered.