Originally Posted by
PAXboy
It is well documented in this forum that when American Airlines took rows of seats out - it made no difference to their bookings and the seats went back in again.
I have stated on here before that this was an absolute spin put on the situation by AA management to justify squeezing the seats back up again. I was a long distance AA regular at the time, right through their More Room Through Coach era, and can say that it was a regular point of conversation with seatmates, and had absolutely contributed to an increase in bookings.
A change of AA management, when Robert Crandall retired, just led to a different perspective. Some thought that it cannibalised their premium class bookings. Probably the same US airline management that long held out against serving free alcohol in Economy when the rest of the world's mainstream carriers did it as a matter of course.
Sometimes the seat-mile cost zealots get to the top of carriers, and make embarrassing decisions. There have been several major purchases of turboprops over time which end up being prematurely parked, because, whatever the seat-mile spreadsheet may say, the competing jet service takes the passengers.