[chrisgagne]

Originally Posted by bilingual

As i am living in Northern Europe, i can not comment directly on US related matters, but here people vote with their wallet, and as a consequence low-fare airlines has emerged and regular airlines have cut costs dramatically in order to be competitive. If customers choose quality compared to cheap flights, the low fare airline revolution would have never occurred.

It might not be that you have chosen to trade quality for cheap flights, but the majority has forced the evolution and airlines such as Southwest seems to find the right balance.

It's not a matter of trading quality for cheap flights. I'd argue that, now especially, Southwest has significantly higher quality than most of the other US carriers. The reason why they are cheaper isn't that they offer lower quality, but rather they've figured out their operations and staff. For example, they fly only 737's to keep maintenance costs down, their happy teams reduce turn-around times at the airport, etc etc.

They've done a good job of eliminating waste, and "waste is anything the customer isn't willing to pay for." Waste for airlines is having pathetic operations and management that drives your cost of providing service up. Waste is not, however, blankets or bilking people over 3kg. That's the sort of short-sighted cost-cutting options given by fresh MBAs like myself trying to get a quick win for their resume, not fundamental change that turns companies around to create real winners.

And as for my sensitive ears... pain and ringing means hearing damage was caused, "sensitive" hearing or not. In-ear headphones are sensitive, not my ears.