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Air Fares Get Much Too Low
24/7 Wall St. ^ | Monday, September 20, 2010 | Robert Herbst

Posted on 09/20/2010 2:43:33 AM PDT by Willie Green

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To: Willie Green
This article is nonsense.

The drop in air fares is directly attributable to competition from airlines like Southwest and JetBlue which can make a profit at lower prices. It's the capitalist system at work.

I am surprised that some airlines haven't opted for a higher-price, higher-service business model. It wouldn't work in all markets, but NYC-LAX, for example, could probably support it. Now, some might claim that the legacy airlines (USAirways, Delta, etc.) tried that, but evidently their service wasn't considered superior enough to be worth the higher prices.

41 posted on 09/20/2010 1:06:02 PM PDT by BfloGuy (It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect . . .)
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To: Willie Green
last the lifetime of the riders like a passenger rail car will

How many 80 year old railroad cars are in service today?

42 posted on 09/20/2010 2:19:42 PM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney
How many 80 year old railroad cars are in service today?

Actually, quite a few of them have been refurbish/restored and back in service as short-run tourist excursions or available for private lease. You can rent your own "private" train to travel on, or just the private car and attach it to an Amtrak train if you want.

It's a pretty specialized business that not many people are aware of, but if you do a little searching with Google, you'll discover that's what they're doing with a lot of the older vintage classic passenger cars.

43 posted on 09/20/2010 2:35:15 PM PDT by Willie Green (Some people march to a different drummer – and some people polka.)
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To: Willie Green

That doesn’t really meet the description of your staying in service. Specialty luxury service is not what it appeared you were describing and not the current proposal for spending our tax dollars.


44 posted on 09/21/2010 4:49:37 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney
That doesn’t really meet the description of your staying in service.

Neither does the 80-year lifespan that you specified.
That would require at least 7~8 limos, not the 3~4 that I was talking about.

45 posted on 09/21/2010 4:54:51 AM PDT by Willie Green (Some people march to a different drummer – and some people polka.)
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To: Willie Green

It was your words that claimed they would last the passenger lifetime? Did you mean only in a 3rd world nation where people die by age 50?

Restored collectable limo’s and cars last 80 years as well. But like your example, they are not in regular service.

I was just pointing out yet another of your exaggerations/distortions on your quest to take tax payer money to promote your hobby.


46 posted on 09/21/2010 5:09:11 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Alberta's Child

I hear the complaints, but I don’t see the reduction in service quality unless you’re going back to the 60s when it was too expensive for the average American family to travel.

I find the flight service fully acceptable. I’d rather get there cheap and spend the money on the vacation not the travel.

The current trouble the airlines face has more to do with government bungling - airports, FAA, taxes and petty politics.

United Airlines shouldn’t exist today, but Daley and the Feds kept them alive because Daley couldn’t afford to lose another business in Chicago.

Had they properly died the airlines would have been much healthier. Instead we get a GM situation of a zombie airline. Of the airlines I fly I noted a marked reduction in quality service from United once the employees took over.


47 posted on 09/21/2010 5:22:28 AM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: BfloGuy
I am surprised that some airlines haven't opted for a higher-price, higher-service business model. It wouldn't work in all markets, but NYC-LAX, for example, could probably support it.

I've heard of this in Europe (a friend of mine once took a flight within Europe a few years ago where the entire aircraft was a first-class cabin), but not here in the U.S. I've been told by someone in the airline business that this model would be difficult to operate profitably in the U.S. because so many of the prospective customers who might use this service have left the airline industry altogether in favor of private aircraft and shared ownership arrangements (e.g., NetJets).

48 posted on 09/21/2010 6:24:14 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark.")
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