Commentary - Irwin Stelzer: Airlines that Dickens would love and hate
Posted November 1, 2007
Every time you think that flying and airports – and airport security could not get worse – it always seems to manage to get more unpleasant…
Bring back to the future an emphasis on passenger train transportation – please…
Irwin Stelzer: Airlines that Dickens would love and hate
Irwin Stelzer, The Examiner, 2007-10-30
It is the best of times, it is the worst of times — best of times for
The airlines are making money despite delays and horrible service. The reason: After a wave of chastening bankruptcies, they have cut capacity, bringing the number of available seats more into line with demand and reducing the scramble to peddle empty seats at any price above the almost zero cost of carrying an additional passenger.
[…]
If lines lengthen at security checkpoints, no one has an incentive to add staff or open more lanes. By contrast, such a situation at Whole Foods, Giant or any respectable supermarket results in the opening of more check-out lines to relieve congestion.
Store managers have an incentive to prevent customers from taking their business elsewhere; airport managers don’t, or think they don’t. Indeed, they have every incentive to keep costs down and profits up, even if that means providing a miserable service.
[…]
Gordon Bethune, former chief executive officer of Continental Airlines, once commented on reductions in the quality of service that “You can take so much cheese off the pizza that nobody will eat it.” Perhaps. But for now the skimpy pizza is the only food on offer.
Examiner columnist Irwin Stelzer is a senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Economic Studies.
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