Originally Posted by
Std Deviation
From a purely economics standpoint what's a way to decrease demand for a good or service? Increase the price. Perhaps a return to the days of $1500 fares from Chicago to DC are in order. As an analogy you can sell 1000 Camrys or 100 Ferraris and make the same amount of money.
There's a lot of Camrys in the system right now because of high demand. Higher airfare equals less demand equals less need for pilots. Ugly from a career standpoint but the economics are logical.
That's only the case if you are making the Camrys and the Farraris. You'd be better off saying Car A and Car B because, in the end, to the consume, air travel is almost all the same. If airilnes A, B, C, and D raise their fares but Airline E doesn't, guess where all the money is going to go. Not everyone is faced with a shortage. The LCCs would send the legacies into bankruptcy if they started charged $1500 for a one-way domestic ticket. The regionals will go away long before that happens.