Congratulations on getting an 'A' - you put a lot of effort and thought into it, and did a very good job.

You asked for some feedback, so here comes my two cents . . .

The main premise of your paper is that poor or lacking customer service is the root cause for some of the financial demise of the US air carrier. I agree that customer service is important, however I would argue that commercial aviation is now a commodity business to the consumer and therefore ticket prices are very elastic. A person buys a ticket to get themselves and their bag(s) from point A to point B. What they ultimately care about is getting there for the lowest cost possible. Good customer service is a nice perk but not a requirement. If a customer can pay $30 or $40 less on Airline A instead of Airline B, then Airline A will get the business, including from most business travelers. Companies are trying to reign in costs in this economy at every level.

If you have not read it, I strongly suggest reading "Nuts", a book about Southwest Airlines. My post would be entirely too long if I went into great depth, but in that book the authors discusses for example the very important difference between:

1) excellent customer service comes NOT from "making the customer come first" BUT from management making (1) company employees come first, (2) company investors second, and (3) strangely enough, CUSTOMERS THIRD, or last in this little equation.

2) hub and spoke airline operations versus point to point operations (particularly the tremendous economic efficiencies that can be achieved through better aircraft and crew member utilization - therefore allowing the cost savings to be passed to the customer in the form of a lower ticket price)

The legacies have been trying to brow beat their employees into providing better customer service for years. Funny thing happens however, when your pension is stolen from you, your paycheck is cut by 1/3 to 1/2, etc.

The employee beatings may continue, but the morale, and therefore customer service, will not improve.

In "Nuts", Colleen Barrett, the former CEO of Southwest, comments that over the years countless airline executives have gone to their Dallas headquarters to meet with SWA executives and ask them how they do what they do to make them successful. She said her answer was always the same, there are no tricks, there are no secrets. But what was consistent every time was the response from the other airlines - "well, we can't do that, it would never work." They obviously went to Dallas to eat lunch and not really learn anything. (To be fair, however, changing the corporate culture at any airline is probably like trying to move the Empire State Building in NYC three inches to the left. If it was not built that way, in that spot from day 1, it will not happen)

I agree with newKnow, above. Fuel hedging is an important part of the financial success of airline. Certain airlines have been more successful than others at this strategy. HOWEVER, fuel hedging is one piece of an intricate puzzle, where every puzzle piece must stand on its own before the whole can be considered a financial success.