Originally Posted by
AirportPlanner1
Forgive my cynicism but what do Mesa bring to the table? If it were Air Nostrum riding in I might understand the logic more but other than slightly better buying power for new aircraft I can’t see the benefit for an airline flying under the banner of AA & UA working with different model and fleet thousands of miles away.
Completely agree. Mesa exists to serve the gigantic and hungry US network carriers. Which UK airlines are crying out for Mesa-style contract carriers at the moment? (I'd love to see IAG seize the current opportunity to create a local Mesa that could serve EI Regional and restart BA-branded flying from non-London airports but 1. it didn't work for them 10 years ago and 2. the current BA CEO's attention span is limited to petty cost-cutting so I don't hold out much hope).
Originally Posted by Cazza_fly
What they have always struggled with to make money on unlike their LCC competitors, is their reluctance to push and increase ancillary revenue spends.
I wish that were true! Flybe more or less invented most of the ancillary revenue
scams streams that are now common in the industry, from baggage+seat bundles to dynamic pricing and hidden revenue. It ruthlessly adopted the Ryanair approach of automatically adding extras such as assigned seating during the purchase process, forcing customers to opt out of the extra cost rather than inviting them to opt in. (It's still at it ... the app suggests you need to buy up to a bundle fare to take a cabin bag, but you don't...) And before the Office of Fair Trading intervened, Flybe was happily charging an £11 flat fee for all credit card transactions! I'd suggest management, creeping costs, strategy and customer perception are bigger culprits.