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Travel -
Getting There
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Written by Karl Wolf
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Monday, 05 October 2009 09:19 |
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Page 1 of 4
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, major airlines were teetering on the edge of financial collapse. Faced with their eminent demise, the industry started getting lean with their extras and creative with their pricing. In the summer of 2008, as speculative fever drove oil to $147 a barrel, it became even more imperative for airlines to slash costs and come up with new sources of revenue.
Like a sinking ship, they first started by throwing everything overboard. If you flew American, the free food got taken off the menu. Want a sandwich, pony up $8 and its yours. Airlines even introduced "premium" $3 snacks which looked a lot like the snacks they used to give for free but in larger packages. I'll take two of the free one's please.
Acting in unison, every Airline executive was trying to emulate the Southwest Airlines model. The only trouble was that their flight attendants weren't nearly as cheerful and their planes didn't suddenly start arriving on time. Seriously, why are the crews on Southwest Airlines so giddy compared to the sorry lot on other airlines? Maybe it's because the Southwest flight attendants are already on their second drink at the hotel bar because their plane landed on schedule.
To imitate Southwest, the traditional airlines started by cutting out the food. But that hardly made a dent in their bottom line. So they decided to outdo Southwest by taking things a few steps further. They introduced baggage fees and hiked their ticket change fees to absurd levels.
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