mercurydancer; Your posts are worth reading as well.
the benefit of the crew and the SLF.
Absolutely. The matter is far from simple. Deregulation has its strong side and benefits - airline flying CAN be done more cheaply and still safely. However, like all good things, the industry has said to itself, "Gee, size 9 fits so well I think I'll buy size 12."
Airline fares need to rise so that the industry can recover both experience and appropriate succession as thousands of experienced pilots retire and are replaced, by, some airline managments assume, automation - another long thread.
I have a great deal of difficulty accepting that normal people who wait in Starbuck's lineups for 15 minutes and spend nearly five bucks on designer lattes can sometimes go postal at the first sign of the same time and cost differences when it comes to airlines.
True, airlines have taught their customers that a dollar and a minute makes a "huge" difference so must share in these unrealistic expectations and sophisticated software programs have taken Bob Crandall's notions of loyalty programs and the selling of seats at different prices as departure time draws nigh, but it has been taken too far in an attempt to squeeze every last penny from their ATM machine, (as Sully said), their employees.
Because an airline's inventory evaporates and becomes worthless the moment the door is closed, selling it all before becomes really critical, so different prices apply to get bums in seats. But this industry has consistently sold its product, (time), for less than it costs them out of some hope that people will come and the enterprise can make some money. Notwithstanding the known fact that, like owning a sports team, owning an airline is sexy and puts one into a different category of entrepreneur, the business is heavily capitalised and always will be. That is a reality which escapes everyone, SLFs included.
Small raises in airline fares will make all the difference in the world for the industry, but the wailing and knashing of teeth that would follow keeps that change from happening. I just can't get over the fact that people will hand over a five dollar bill for a coffee and get a bit of change and then dump all over the airlines for "overcharging" when less than a man's lifetime ago, "safe airline travel" was an oxymoron.