Originally Posted by sarcasticspasti
That's what I love about guys like you. Your ability to conduct a polite, logical debate. If we priced our product so that only business travelers could fly there would be a very small amount of pilots. But that's what you want, isn't it? An old boys club? And how are you going to create this Nirvana? By having Uncle Sam eliminate all competition? Name an industry that works this way. When you bought your last car, did you go out and find three identical cars and then buy the most expensive one?
communist.
This industry is not a charity and it is not civil service. Everybody in it is in it for themselves. Managers will INVARIABLY act in their own self-interest every time, with total disregard to the well being of employees, the public, and even stockholders.
The pilot groups need to operate in the same manner. The exception is safety, pilots as a group won't compromise, while management has reduced compromising safety to a fine art form.
Normally there would be a sensible pricing point which would maximize revenue. This point, almost by definition, will drive away some (perhaps many) low budget customers. And that is GREAT. If the government wants to subsidize low-cost airtravel for poor people, then everyone can vote on that...but we as pilots and the industry in general have NO obligation to give a remote **** about who can or cannot afford our services.
There complex reasons as to why we are not operating at the aformentioned pricing point (having to do with fixed and variable costs).