Originally Posted by fedsec
Romulus, carrying more seats around than your competitor doesn't make you a market leader. Carrying more pax around doesn't either if you have lots of empty seats you are paying for but not generating income with.
I thought you were into efficiencies. Surely the carrier who flies around with a higher percentage of seats filled is a market leader. Their expenses are less and they earn more income per ASK.
The two are not DIRECTLY connected. You can probably fill every seat if you sell them for $1 each. But you're not going to make profit.
The tradeoff of customer behaviour with regard to price of your product vs decision to go elsewhere is key. If you can charge a premium for your product then you potentially need to sell less to make the same profit. This is particularly so in an airline environment where the majority of costs are fixed, there is very little variable cost for adding an additional passenger compared to the cost of getting the aircraft in the air for that trip.
Market leader can be determined in many ways, one things humans are good at is maximisation, we are nowhere near as good at optimisation. If 100 customers are good, then 200 must be better. Or must it? If I make twice as much from those 100 individuals then it is break even. Tailoring operational offering to market conditions is critical.
Originally Posted by fedsec
I may not know as much as you about airlines. So lets just say you win the debate. After all you have worked in Aviation management and I am just a mere Mechanic.
Is Alan happy yet anyone?
Now you're into passive aggressive behaviour when challenged.
What I have called you on is your claim that the answer to QF issues is to simply raise ticket prices and also the conclusions you have drawn from the QF/JAL numbers you provided.