Originally Posted by
DAL 88 Driver
RJ's kill a market. Customers have a bad experience and blame it on Delta, the company from whom they bought the ticket. We lose customers to competitors like SWA. And then when we try to put mainline back in, we've already run off a whole bunch of customers. This is the part the bean counters don't seem to know how to quantify. And they're too stuck in the world of their cubicle to figure it out.
DAL88, I agree the premise on which they grew was based on incorrect assumptions. Basing it on the fact that frequency with reduced capacity would allow the RASM and margins to rise was all well and good, but they forgot two things; customer sanctification, the response of all of the other airlines. Market shares remained the same, other airlines acted in kind, and the markets were flooded with frequency on a higher cost jets. The ticket price increases never materialized.
My comment was more TIC, but the fact is a small jet works as long as no other airline responds in kind. As we know, that ain't going to happen. (It does work for DAL in many small southern markets where they are the only game in town, but not many)
Also, it is not just RJ to mainline, it can be mainline to mainline as well. I have heard some very interesting comments from passengers flying the 767 on these Transpac's.