Re: American\'s getting a little \"scrappy\"
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And I tell you why. AirTran is catering to a certain type of passneger, the low cost passenger.
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New flash. Most passengers in today's airline industry ARE low cost passengers. If the business traveller that normally flew Delta passed up the $49 AirTran ticket, how do you think the stockholders would view that? Wasteful or mismanagement of funds. This is why the legacies are having to restructure. If you the low cost passenger was only one market, then everything would be hunky dory (damn, I really said that). However, since it's all about price and not really about service or amenities anymore, everyone has to target the low cost market or lose what little market share they already have. AirTran might not be trying to put Delta out of business, but I can guarantee you they are trying to take a chunk of Delta's marketshare. That's exactly what AA was doing with JetBlue. Is called free marker and welcome to America. JetBlue just happened to have a better structure at that price, so the consumer went with them. If AA could have held out long enough to keep matching those fares, then JetBlue would have been in trouble. No sense getting bitter and angry over an open market. It's called competition, and it's what makes the market run.
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they should offer superior service and show that paying a little more on Delta has its values instead of trying to come down to our level. That what leaves a nasty taste in our (the LCC employees) mouth
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Why does that leave a nasty taste in your mouth? I worked for a LCC for years, but I never felt animosity towards a legacy carrier. Pity sometimes, but not animosity. The problem is that most people WON'T pay for the extra service on DAL. It'd be nice if they would, but if you look at ticket sales, the data just isn't there. Joe Average wants to fly from ATL-PHX (no offense Doug, it just came out like that) for the cheapest price he can find. There's next to no brand loyalty in the airline business. Check most frequent fliers, and you'll find they have SEVERAL frequent flier cards. They don't stick with one airline, they go with who has the best deal or who has the flight leaving when they want to leave, whichever one they prefer most. NWA has some of the WORST customer service I've ever seen, so I don't know how they manage to keep passengers other than setting up their hubs in a way that barriers of entry for competition are too high. The fact that they codeshare with CAL and DAL pretty much gives them almost total control of Memphis.
