Originally Posted by FliFast

VB,

Thanks for posting this article, it offers an honest insight as to how the traveling public views airline travel these days.
I took a few snipets from the article that I thought personify the public's opinions:

----------------------

"Fees are a fact of life
The airline industry’s pricing strategies have always been byzantine. Now they are also criminal. It has loaded on so many fees, surcharges, and extras that your final price is a crapshoot."

Fees are a fact of life because the Gov't has ordered the (deregulated) airlines to collect these monies to offset the fight against terrorism, the cost of rebuilding the aviation infrastructure (which is not all that stellar), and heaven only knows for what else. I hope passengers aren't too upset when they soon see a fee called "Passenger Bill of Rights surcharge". How else do you think the airlines will fund the rewards of being a whiney passenger.

Airlines are in business to make money, not lose it. With airlines providing $39 each way fares to keep the traveling public happy, how else do you expect them to make money...by robbing banks. They already have robbed the employees paychecks, pensions, and jobs.
It's not criminal as the author suggests it's called survival in order to provide the cheap prices that the public insists upon.

-------------------

"The grass is greener ...
The rapid decline of standards in domestic travel sometimes blinds us to a global reality: Travel is often less offensive, less costly, and much more comfortable elsewhere."

Welcome to airline deregulation...you get what you pay for..and guess what...you pay $39 for a one way fare when the price of oil is near $100 a barrel and be lucky you get to sit in a seat instead of on the floor. The author needs a reality-check cocktail, in fact make it a double.

------------------

"The fine print
Here’s a lesson we have to learn again: Europe is back on strike. After years of relative labor peace, the transport unions and the relevant airline and train companies seem to be at war over everything: salaries, pensions, work rules, staffing. Even as I write this, there are one-day strikes affecting transportation in Italy, Greece, and France. You’ll need to plan accordingly in 2008."

When we go on strike here in the U.S. there is a good chance the White House will intervene or that airline management will hire replacement workers as was the case at Northwest a few years back. The word "strike" unfortunately doesn't hold the same horsepower it once did in this country and as it does oversees.


In closing, I may be alone in my opinion, but I feel the article has comedy to it in the form of irony. The traveler is a seasoned professional, however; he dreams about a higher level of service that is present maybe in countries that have state-run airlines not deregulated ones. He insists that current pricing is criminal, but offers a solution of raising fares which in a deregulated industry with low cost carriers is an option that only leads to loss of business and subsequent revenue. For a seasoned traveler he comments like someone that has never flown before.

Just my vantage point...

FF