If your favourite legacy carrier has not yet taken these actions - then they will be doing so very soon now! The LCCs must be hugely amused by the effect that they have had on carriers. Watching your competitors reduce costs, so that think they are competing with you but are merely devaluing their own product, must be rewarding. In due course, some punters will think that, since there is no great benefit in going with the old carrier, they might as well go pn the one that is even cheaper.
Of course, some will always stick with the old carriers and for all the reasons that we have reahearsed but it is interesting to watch established companies give away their carefully crafted reputation, so that they can increse the pax numbers this year. Some managers just ain't interested in what happens in five years time. Afterall, they will have moved on by then and taken their profit sharing. Heigh-Ho, that's the way the world turns and nothing we can say wil change it.