Frequent Fliers: Expect More Misery

How do you think I feel? After 20 years of having the airline pick MY pocket to keep prices low, they are maybe finally getting the point. You can't charge less than the cost of the product and expect to make money. High fuel prices will basically guarantee that after eight years without a raise, our next contract won't provide one either. We might even get cut further. I hope people don't complain about the price of tickets this summer as jet fuel is nearly $3.00 per gallon and I don't have anything left to give!

I hope I never have to fly again. Since I am not a business traveler, I am just not gonna go to a destination that requires flying. I may not get to see a few of the places I would like to see..but I am just gonna have to make tht sacrafice.

I flew Continental recently and noticed fewer stewards and stewardesses on the flights, which of course means more work for the few on the flight as well as less service for the passengers. They have thankfully not yet announced a plan like American?s where they will charge for the first checked bag, but based on the two flights I took, it?s a bad idea. The plane and therefore the overhead bins were absolutely packed. With fewer flights, planes will continue to be filled to capacity as will luggage. Frankly, there is simply not enough room to store all the luggage on the flight, which will then lead to smaller size requirements for carryons. Essentially flying is becoming less and less convenient and more and more expensive for passengers. I can?t imagine airline employees (asides from high paid executives and CEOs) are pleased as with fewer employees, it means more work for the few that remain. Will I stop flying? Hopefully not completely, but if prices continue to soar and service continues to plummet, I will certainly do so far less frequently.

It's all too bad. The airline industry has always been a tough way to make a buck, even in relatively good times.

Too bad we let our rail systems go to pot; there are going to be fewer and fewer affordable options for long-distance travel.

Marquis Jet (www.marquisjet.com).

And I hear you about the trains, Pork: for a few years in the 1980's I traveled all around Europe via train: comfortably, on time, and economically. For downtown-to-downtown, many trips were faster than they would have been by air. The only similar train experience in the states is the Amtrak Acela Boston-New York-Washington run, and that has sometimes been prone to problems, too.

Here is what Miss Martta predicts: People who travel for pleasure, as opposed to mandatory business travel, won't put up with this crap from the airlines for very long. They won't fly and will find alternative ways to get to their destination. The airlines will then have 2 choices: file for bankruptcy or lower their prices and/or provide other services to woo back travelers.

Really, it's getting ridiculous. As if flying weren't stressful enough post 9-11, you now have airlines charging per bag, offering crappy food (we bring our own it's gotten so bad), overbooking flights, and treating passengers like animals in steerage. What other industry treats people so badly and gets away with it?

Unfortunately MM, the airlines will say, "fine, take a bus."

They got us.

How else are you going to get to LA?

That said, I think treating folks as (old fashioned) customers- ala Jet Blue- makes us flock to your product.

(But you forgot a 3rd choice for the airlines: threaten to file for bankruptcy and beg for the Government to bail you out.)

"How else are you going to get to LA?"

Uh, train? I would add car but most people don't have the time plus it's not the greenest or cheapest, way to travel, especially now.

And why should the government bail them out for bad decision making? If the government bailed out every business/industry that went kaput, we'd be in worse shape than we are now.

According to the Amtrak site, NY to LA takes about 61 hours.

A plane takes about 5.

My point is that since air travel is the fastest way to travel- by far- most folks will put up with bad service. (If they must travel great distances.)

I do think that many will simply find vacation spots closer to home.

As for bailouts, the Government (obviously) cannot bailout every business. However, Government does have a part to play when it comes to major industries that many folks rely on.

So depending upon the circumstances, I could support Government "bailouts" of airlines, but not, say, Google. (Circumstance will dictate that support).

The alternative to having a competitive airline industry is what? One airline with really HIGH prices?

Decamp Air!!

Historically, airlines have done a poor job of managing their cost structure, which allowed very efficient upstarts like Southwest, JetBlue and RyanAir to eat the lunch of the large incumbents. Most of the big airlines have made a lot of progress in managing costs, but you can't blame them for the spiraling cost of fuel. At the current ticket price levels, no one is able to operate profitably. RyanAir just announced its first quarterly loss in 4 years. The implications are that airlines will continue to reduce services in order to lower their cost structures further, ticket prices will need to rise, demand will decrease, and all airlines will cut back on the number of flights and routes that they offer. Extremely low fuel costs in the late 90's and early 2000's supported a boom in the airline industry, but those days are gone.

"...but you can't blame them for the spiraling cost of fuel."

True, but I think a lot of the poor service issues were in existence before the rise in fuel.

No, but running an airline is a high fixed-cost endeavor even in the best of times. I think many service issues were the result of too many airlines competing for customers based primarily on price; such was air travel as a commodity. That, and the system just could not handle the volume; whether antiquated air traffic control or stormy spring weather on the east coast, many if not most flight delays are due to factors completely beyond any individual airline's ability to control.

As for the folks who are now saying, "well, one more reason I'm not going to fly anymore", or "I'm not going to fly that airline anymore", or, "I'll just take the bus/train/car, etc.", chances are that you will be anyway, but not out of your own volition. Unless oil prices decline by 50% by the end of this year (which of course will not happen), the only way most airlines will survive will be to switch to a business model predicated on air travel being a premium service, as it was before deregulation in the late '70's, not the egalitarian "highway in the skies" that we've enjoyed for the last two decades or so. We are seeing the beginning phases of that now, as Continental will be mothballing dozens of planes and cutting overall flights by 16% beginning in the fall. Look for many more cuts in capacity and destinations over the cutting months. And don't be shocked if a major airline (probably United) completely goes under in the next 6-12 months.

When oil was relatively cheap, the airlines thought they could make up in volume what they lacked in pricing power. Were it not for 9/11, that approach may have been much more profitable than it was. Going forward, airlines are going to have to fill almost every plane to 95% of capacity with passengers who are paying their own way, not sitting there on deep discount airfares. Service to vacation destinations, where the bulk of flyers are typically leisure travelers with lower tolerance for higher fares than business travelers, will see flights slashed, as will service to many smaller cities where the airlines have trouble filling the planes. Even Southwest faces a day of reckoning: the secret to their success over the past several years has been a good hedging strategy on oil. That just postponed their day of reckoning. They, too, will soon need to face the reality of record-high oil prices, and the consequences won't be pretty for them either.

With high gasoline costs and few practical options to travel by rail, long-distance travel will become too pricey for many leisure and business travelers, hurting domestic tourism and commerce. Alas, the saving grace for tourism here in the near term will be the Euro. It soon might be cheaper for Europeans to fly here for a weekend than for Baristavillians to spend a weekend at the shore.

It's all a shame really. I rather enjoyed flying: the sensation of defying gravity, viewing the panorama of our beautiful country from the sky, and watching two thunderhead clouds exchange lightning bolts at 30,000 feet. Yes, I really like to fly. It was just all the other people on the plane I could have done without!

I suppose I'd better cash in my Continental OnePass miles while I can. After that, I probably can look forward to many "staycations". At least we have plenty of great restaurants here in Baristaville, because they will be the new beneficiaries of my largesse!

Looks we'll be spending lots of time at the shore and the town pool this year.

I have to fly to keep the spondoolicks rolling in. Delays are a given. You get a President's Club membership and hope they have one in whatever God foresaken airport you're stuck in. Right now it's Bermuda, so I can't really complain too much, it's my 3rd favorite island. I'd rather be here for vacation then work. But in the epithat of the immortal W.C.Fields "Right now I'd rather be in GR"! ($8.00 a gal. in Bermuda)

How are me and Mrs Ice person supposed to get to Aruba? Maybe the hotels can subsidize the airlines in a partnership?

Take a slow boat to Aruba. Will be less stressful that way.