The American Consumer
I don't disagree with one word written so far, and far be it from me to defend myopic airline management, but I think the American consumer bears some responsibility here.
In a country where you can have ten different kinds of milk, 20 different kinds of toothpaste, etc, then of course we're not gonna be satisfied unless we have 15 choices of how to travel from Point A to Point B.
There are some companies that will put a 737 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas on the hour, every hour!
Or between Los Angeles and San Francisco every hour!
My question is: Do we really need that kind of frequency? Isn't the system already saturated? Didn't Boing make a special version of the 747 especially for the Japanese, high-volume, short-haul market?
The RJs are frustrating but not just because of scope.
Sometimes I wish the industry was like it was before deregulation: Big airplanes, glamor, only the rich flew (and dressed nicely when they did), tickets were expensive.
Oh well.