404 - Well said.
I was going to be a little more humble about it however. Staff travel, whilst becoming an ever increasing profit centre for airlines, is still usually cheaper.
Having said that, almost all the people I speak to outside the industry cannot believe it when I tell them that my employer charges such a high price for staff travel tickets, especially when employees may be using them to get to and from work.
It seems to me it is only
certain people
within the (aviation) industry that are unhappy with the concept of airline staff getting cheap fares. To the wider community (in my experience), cheap fares for airline employees seems reasonable. The concept of an airline jacking up staff travel prices to make profit from its own employees makes most reasonable people want to vomit
How little it actually costs to carry an employee, compared to what a great employee engagement tool staff travel can be.
I have worked for other operators that charge nix for a free seat. Of course I don't expect a seat for free, especially when the airline is incurring taxes etc for my carriage. I do, however, take offence at paying a crappy fuel levy which pays for the extra fuel burn many times over in most cases, then getting to work and being asked to delay starting the APU or shut down an engine during taxy in.
Give and take. What's that?
Ah bugger - we have hijacked the thread haven't we? We were talking about Dixon crossing a line in the sand...