[bilingual]

Originally Posted by chrisgagne

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. 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.

You are not taking into account that the low fare revolution has forced traditional airlines down to the knees.
The problem is that traditional network airlines tries to match the lowfare airlines in prices due to the increased competition, which they are in no position to do without wrecking their product, as we can see in number of Delta complaints as an example.
A fast turn around is for example not possible for a network airline.