[compareandfly]

Originally Posted by AADFW

Jim, I fully agree with everything in your post except the first sentence. The US airline industry is most definitely not in chaos. US carriers are expected to generate around $3.6 billion in profits in 2013, much higher than $2.3 billion earned last year. North American airlines have achieved this robust growth potential through the end of 2013 by virtue of disciplined capacity, rising travel demand and all of these annoying fees or "ancillary revenues" in airline vernacular. U.S. carriers are performing quite well in terms of the DOT customer service parameters including on-time arrivals, lost luggage, customer complaints to the government, rates of cancellation and overbooking of flights. But we all know the service totally sucks on the human level, and the "gotcha" fee-based revenue model borders on dishonest. Economists argue that airlines are only meeting the desires of US consumers who over and over again have voted with their wallets en masse. Most Americans would pay $5 for a ticket from NY to LA if it meant cramming themselves into the cargo hold, yet complain bitterly about the legroom and lack of service throughout. Domestic US airline seats have tragically become a commodity and the US airlines are well aware of this. The bottom feeding American airline consumers have destroyed the quality of domestic service even for those of us willing to pay for it. Sadly, the current earnings approach by the airlines is actually working very well, serving to turn a nice profit after years of loss. Service-based attempts at differentiation during the earlier post-deregulation period failed miserably. The average airline consumer has, in effect, become his own worst enemy.

Nice post. Thanks for share your information with us.