Just a few days ago, we found out exactly what airlines thought of consumers when, after a lapse in the law allowed travelers to catch a bit of a break, a number of major carriers found a way to turn it to their advantage.
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The kinds of travelers in a market heavily influence what prices airlines charge as well.
We also take into account competitive factors, such as what other airlines are offering in these respective markets.
He cited the difference between what the airlines think will placate customers--prompt ticket refunds, quoting lowest available fares and retrieving lost luggage--and what's really annoying travelers: flight delays, long check-in lines and the 20-minute wait at the baggage carousel.
They lacked permission to do what was necessary because the airlines bounded what they could do.
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You could describe what those regional airlines did as niche filling.
But what if the airlines and Boeing are now scrambling underneath the surface to investigate and fix a whole host of problems with the 787 whose purported 20% fuel savings offered a big profitability boost to the long-suffering airline industry?
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What do the Southwest Airlines boarding process and the video game Halo have in common?
What must gall other airlines about Southwest is that its reputation for friendly service masks average performance.
Open Skies will intensify competition for ailing U.S. airlines on what has been their most profitable route.
When I lost my diary and iPod on planes, I did the same thing, telling the airlines exactly what seat I had been on and on which flights, but I never saw those items again.
Most people really didn't know what had happened, and you saw at each of the transit desks British Airlines to people about what they were going to have to do about their hand luggage, because they are transit passengers and they had tons of hand luggage.
Given the cost and the bother for airlines, one wonders what's really in it for them.
But on long-haul flights, airlines are restrained in what they can cut.
In the late 1970s, the law was changed to allow airlines to give consumers what they actually wanted, which was mostly lower prices.
He added that like the airlines, bankruptcy is what could potentially save the domestic automakers, but not before enormous losses for shareholders and employees.
Whether you take supermarkets, investment banks, airlines, or auditors, what you get as a customer is highly similar across firms.
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What happens when WiseWindow moves away from airlines and towards consumer products with shorter purchasing lead times (like fast food hamburgers or apparel)?
Hungry passengers became a new fee opportunity, and food-for-purchase plans have been evolving as airlines try to figure out what passengers are willing to pay for.
"I think it's going to be a very challenging time for them, I have to say, knowing what we face with competition to attract airlines, to attract new operators, " he said.
What's interesting is if the airlines will have a really big sale, particularly big international sale, between now and Labor Day to get people over whatever fears they may have, to get people over whatever worries about the recession, about the economy that they may have.
The airlines are not prepared to say what fares they will charge, but the 3, 500 regular Concorde users (many of whom fly back first class on subsonic flights after a day's work in America or Europe) are unlikely to be price-sensitive.
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The mergers that formed what are now the world's two largest airlines, United and Delta, surpassing American, were intended to reduce capacity in an industry known for chasing market share over profits.
That's what happened in 1989, when the crew of United Airlines Flight 232 achieved the nearly impossible.
What, for instance, should British Airways and American Airlines, who hope this autumn to clear regulatory obstacles to an alliance, call their offspring?
But what really worries BA, and other business-oriented airlines, is that the cyclical downturn may be coinciding with a structural decline in business travel because of advances in information technology.
For Holdway, who trained as an industrial designer, the project dovetails neatly with his day-to-day work helping retailers, airlines, fashion brands and defense companies achieve what he calls "carbon-led redesigns" of their products and processes.
Airlines, in short, seem to be doing what they can to alleviate travel misery.
Eight years ago, the European Union established what seemed like far-reaching consumer protections, requiring that airlines compensate passengers for long delays and cancellations.
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