Exactly,

Let the thrifty fliers scoop up the cheap fares on the LCCs.

Every month the seat capacity in the low fare market drops, soon the only one left standing will be WN.

The majority of the flying public that remains will have to pay a fare price...

How to run a successful airline:
1) Raise a ton of investment capital.
2) Buy a ton of energy hedges.
3) Cancel/delay aircraft deliveries. As soon as you start flying aircraft, the airline loses money.

I'd build my own oil rig and refinery which would only drill enough oil and refine enough gas to supply my airline without having to pay market rates. Any leftover gas would be sold to other airlines at a discounted market rate.

Offer only young and beautiful women a 10 year contract to work as a flight attendants, gate agents, and other "front line" employees while sending them to college part time. To keep from being sued, package this program as a scholarship for minorities (women). After the contract ends, assuming they've graduated and held a certain GPA in an approved degree, hire them into management positions. A similar program could be used for ramp workers / maintenance.

Offer real and delicious food on the flight for cost. The kicker is, price it cheaper than the junk they serve in the concourses.

Offer in-flight internet services. For this to work, it has to be cheap enough that regular folks would be willing to pay for it. Try to package it with a persons cell-phone package or home cable package.

Just my two cents...

-Fatty

Fly as much cargo and as few passengers as possible. Apparently people are willing to pay more per pound of cargo to ship it same day than they are to ship themselves!:D

FedEx: 190 lbs NYC-LAS = $1299.84
JetBlue: 190 lbs NYC-LAS = $429.00

FedEx will pick you up and drop you off! JetBlue makes you drive.

An airline "not the unions" run by Jimmy Hoffa.

Or you can run it into the ground like Bill Compton did at TWA. He was an MD-80 Captain.

If I ran an airline I would slap a greyhound sign on the airplane and charge more for a ticket. We would make millions.

Says the man whom has found the time to post, at last count, 117 times.:)

Ive thought of this before as well, contract employees work great for front line people that can be trained for their position relatively cheaply in a few weeks. I would also like to see customer service skills being TAUGHT to these people instead of hoping they know how to treat people.

Pilots get a flat rate CA or FO pay per year that is based on other airlines weighted payscales. For example, take a 737 and find the average pay for the total payscale (add years 1-18 pay and divide by 2) for each airline operating the 737.

Company profits are divided 25% for shareholder dividends, 25% mgmt bonuses, 50% labor groups. To divide the labor group share, give each labor union their respective cash and have them split it up among their employees. Removes the company from responsibility and places pressure on the unions to either be fair to all or split the $$$ depending on years of seniority. Having % shares for employee groups keeps mgmt from growing un-necessarily large (which would reduce their individual bonus).

A new frequent flier program. APC Airlines has frequent fliers who accumulate points, and can redeem them for any other airline as long as they book through APC Airline who they originally got the points through. APC Airline travel dept books tickets on other airlines for the customers when they redeem points, which in turn gives APC Airlines an elite frequent flier status on all other carriers which is passed down to the APC customer when they fly. Complicated?