Readers speak: How to save airlines

Airlines within America are managed by a bunch of Kmart educated morons. It is simple to run a major airline. You set ticket prices to make a set profit margin. Add surcharges on fuel cost - duh simple. Take a lesson from the Asian carriers about customer service. Get rid of the fat-butt airline attendants - the military can do it so why can't you! Legal problems you say... hire a lawyer to set your standards. If the current laws don't allow you to run your company move your headquarters overseas. Congress will wake up sooner or later... ha!

Several things for sure..

1. Government interference to lower oil prices is required. At the very least, try to get it down to manageable levels

2. If Airlines wants to survive, sometimes, prestige is more important than price. At times, airlines that has more prestige, or more accurately more safety ratings, cabin comfort, etc., is an essential item amongst other thing rather than price itself.

3. Switching to alternative fuels might be one thing to consider.. Bio-fuel is one.

There are numerous alternatives out there, and the need to think outside the box. If traditional thinking won't work, try and see alternatives and lessons from airlines around the world.

I agree with Jim Keogh that the problem is best left to the markets.But that does not mean that the government should be totally lax.In difficult times,airlines would try to cut costs by all means.So the FAA should be very vigilant about safety issues as short sighted CEO interested only in quarterly earnings and the value of their stock options could tinker with fund allocation in maintenance.Eventually air travel would go back to where it was-a luxury affordable only by the well off.Or some alternative energy source has to be developed which is unlikely in the near future.Alternative energy comprises only 7% of total energy consumption in the US.

Hike in price of fuel is making airlines industry vulnerable.Some ways to reduce the fare should be searched.Management tactics can be of little use to save the airlines.Aircraft manufacturers and research firms should look for more fuel efficient engines.More importantly,airlines should dare to use alternative fuel powered engines in their aircrafts.

Continous hike in the price of fuel has made the airlines vulnerable.I think management tactics are of little use.If airlines are to be saved, engines have to be made more efficient or they should be powered by alternative fuels.

Merge. Merge. Merge.
Bigger airlines with less competition can manage their cost and will provide bigger capacity aircraft. Instead of having to competing aircraft departing at the same time, airlines will make scale savings.

And, yes, passengers will have to deal with less frequency choice if they are not ready to pay.

There's no precise time you have to be somewhere to be guaranteed you'll get on plane. If you buy a movie ticket for 9pm, you show up at 9 (or heck 9:10 if you don't mind missing the trailers) and you'll see your movie.

Airline tickets are not so easy to interprete. There's a "departure time" and there's the "door close" (usually 10 minutes before that) but before that you have to judge whether you should take 30 minutes or 1 hour or 90 minutes to park, check in with the ticket counter (if you haven't printed out your ticket at home), go through airport security and then walk (or run) to the gate.

Why not say, if you're at the shuttle bus (which could originate from depots in the city center and not at the airport itself) at 9, you're on the bus, (as Ken Kesey would say), and if you're there at 9:01, you're off the bus. People who haven't bought tickets yet could buy them on the bus just as you can buy a ticket from a train conductor.

Once the airline shuttle buses for a particular flight get to the airport, the airline shepherds everyone from that flight through security (assuming there weren't TSA checkpoints at the depots). Regardless how long the security line is, the plane doesn't leave until the passengers who've checked in at a shuttle bus by the ticket departure time are on the plane.

Of course scheduled trip times will be longer...on paper, but only because the listed trip time now internalizes the various bottlenecks now left to passenger to calculate. Once you've checked in with your flight group, you don't have to worry about either missing the flight or wasting time by getting to the departure gate too early.

The airline experiment of low prices and high volume has failed. No brainer solution: higher prices, lower volume. The greatest lesson of deregulation is that airlines that choose to sell seats below cost are destined for bankruptcy. Oh and BTW, sell your Boeing stock.

I like Sammy Khosh's idea of airline membership, but why buy a flight at a premium price with a standby option for $50 when you can standby for that price now (CO). Sell memberships, just as with Frequent Flyer Lounges, that give standby privileges as employees have now.

Let's say an individual pays $1,000 annually with a guarantee of at least 1 confirmed r/t coach seat in off-peak hours, and the privilege of standing by whenever, paying only taxes, throughout the year. Membership comes with access to flight loads and wait listing online. The Standby Plan generates immediate revenue and enthusiasm. It attracts potential passengers who may not fly frequently. Be good stewards of that revenue and honor the commitment.

Bayless - which fuel already exists?

Everyone is missing the point, The CEO
of SWA created the Hedging of Fuel years ago and wonder why he is the CEO of SWA today, quit with the penny food and blaming everything else. Fuel is 40% of every airlines operational cost.
Except SWA, Lufthansa is hedging their
fuel also, and is going to show a profit for 2008. Where is the Hedging program at all of the others????????

The manner travel industry is designed for sales of ticket, middle man's role, which makes more money than the airlines itself.Online services are doing a great work. Many developing countries some trade bodies representing travel agents do not sell tickets it they're not given at least 15% commissions.
The cost of middle man, travel promoters, marketers, travel agents, etc., should be justified to the ratio.

1) Cut out the advetising. Most people look online for the cheapest price. There is no more brand loyalty. Why pay millions to sponsor an arena or stadium.
2)Figure out a way to upgrade the air traffic control system. Most delays are caused by traffic holds.
3) Business people arent paying for business class tickets, they are usually upgrades. Get rid of business class. Increase the size of every seat and customers will feel like they are getting their moneys worth.

Allow all airlines to have blackjack tables & poker games & roulet wheels so passengers can gamble as soon as the plane takes off and reaches at least 20,000 feet! The ones who gamble frequently can get FREE tickets! Simply design the cabin so there are seven seats facing the flight attendent, who is now a blackjack dealer, sitting at his or her seat! Just think, when there's a delay on the runway and the plane is sitting there, people can be winning money!!! Just have the casinos buy large chunks of stock in airlines and have them converted to Gamblinglines! Here's a possible slogan- "Fly high and double-down!" - Doubledown Airlines, we put the FUN in flying!!!!!!!!!!!

Increase Ground Transportation!!!!!

I am amazed at the minimal thought given to fast trains as a solution to the air travel fiasco.....I'm talking about trains such as the Maglev in Shanghai or "Bullet Trains" in Japan. NOT Amtrak - those trains should be in a museum!!

Here are some advantages that I can think of without further research:

Safer - They run on ground!!!

Run on electric power (Part magnetic if you want to be technically correct.) Point is they do NOT rely on oil/gas.

More passengers travel per train.

Cell Phones will work.

If WiMax is implemented then I could be writing this comment while traveling on the train....

The Economics....
Small excerpt from Wikipedia:
"China aims to limit the cost of future construction extending the maglev line to approximately 200 million yuan (US$24.6 million) per kilometer.[13] These costs compare competitively with airport construction (e.g., Hong Kong Airport cost US$20 billion to build in 1998) and eight-lane Interstate highway systems that cost around US$50 million per mile (US$31 million per kilometer) in the US."

Of course there are some counter arguments but if these trains are implemented regionally (Northeast, East, Southeast, Northwest etc. etc...)then air travel can be limited to longer distances which will result in decongestion of airports, lesser air traffic....etc. etc...

The end result of deregulation.

Who really wants airlines scraping the bottom so much that they have to cut back on maintenence costs? Our family and friends fly on those planes.

Sometimes its smarter to pay more.

Skinny down the number of flight attendants (one per plane), and flight crew (two per plane);ditch the in-flight drinks and food (passengers buy them before boarding); ground the old inefficient junker airplanes; forget first class, use SouthWest as a best in class model for all airlines (equal beat or get out of the business); learn from Ryan Air (Europe's best low cost airline which is highly profitable); stop playing with fares (its stupid that they are constantly changed - minute by minute by some dumb marketing department; bonus people who travel light; provide better and more interesting airport shopping & facilities (make the waiting time count); make wireless free everywhere in an airport - forget the planes. None of these things are hard - outdated laws should be changed to reflect the improvements in technology, reliability and flight productivity. Also, get real with emergency equipment - most is useless in a crash, so drop stuff that has little or no benefit, and redesign to save weight.

Maybe the best solution is to make schedules realistic. that would save fuel (and reduce costs!) for airplanes sitting on the runway. after that, maybe some additional help in replacing their current fleets, since they tend to be gas guzzlers (maybe we put an age limit on aircraft?). and since we the tax payers contribute to the purchase of these airplanes, I am not really a big fan of the idea of them selling them selves to foreign carriers. Nor I am a big proponent of rail. it takes to long to get very far. But the idea of using air ships might be possible for small air ports, since they potentially could reduce the cost of operation.

Let the market handle it, but make some changes to allow more fluid competition.

Make landing slots more available to smaller carriers, taking them away quickly when an airline won't fill them. Upgrade the FAA to allow more flexible and efficient flight paths. Allow non-union labor into the airline industry, and remove work rules designed to increase labor costs instead of add safety. Allow foreign ownership of US carriers, and allow qualified foreign airlines to fly from anywhere, to anywhere in the US (if they want to subsidize US consumer, let 'em).

Don't compromise on safety rules, but make sure the rules aren't designed to just protect incumbents.

Then let airlines fail.

Made a school bus airline for me, safe, cheap, and on time. That's all I ask for.

Remember when flying was a treat? An exciting adventure during which flight attendants were polite and respectful?

I read one airline has actually hired Disney to re-train its workers to be nicer and friendlier to travelers. This is an excellent idea. Airlines and their employees need to remember they are fortunate to have customers paying hundreds, even thousands of dollars to keep them in business. Treat the customer like a king. It's so much easier to just be nice to people.

Maybe airlines are too inexpensive. One of the reasons flights are so overcrowded is because airlines have become the new Greyhound bus. Boost the cost of flights, considerably. The market will even itself out at some point. "Economy" brands like Southwest will thrive and "Blue Chip" brands like American Airlines can go back to being elite, but with better services and experiences for customers.

Eliminate the number of white collar workers at the headoffices by 25%.
Reduce the water the airlines take in.
Eliminate the free papers they give on overseas flights
Reduce the landing fees at the various airports.

Reduce the numerous front desk ticket agents at all the airports, and make it more electronic checkin.

Do not issue paper tickets at all.

The biggest drain on resource will always be fuel. My suggestion is that all the airlines band together and purchase an oil field. Use the oil from this field exclusively for airline operations, that way the oil is completely insulated from the world market prices - it will be most beneficial in the long run.

The best thing that can happen is happening- fuel is getting so expensive that airlines are going to have to find ways to cope with this. The smart ones will find a balance between cutting unnecessary expenses and raising ticket prices, and the not-so-smart airlines will simply disappear.

What people don't realize is these things don't fix themselves overnight, this might take 5 or 10 years to play out.

The US Airlines should become more "Americain". Currently, they make me think of the communists...bad service, bad food and bad planes.

Open the market and let the Asians and Europeans buy US Airlines. Let the laws of competitions operate freely, like in Europe.

the first airline to charge people by the pound will be the one offering cheaper flights to people with little or no luggage and to people that are NOT overweight. This means more room for other paid cargo and less weight to haul, which in turn means more profit and less fuel consumption. And as a side bonus, the airlines using the old ¨everyone pays the same¨ system, will get the worst customers and will eventually be forced to change. The car insurance companies are doing it (they charge you more if you have accidents on your record) and it works wonders not just for lowering insurance costs but also for making people more concerned about the consequences of unsafe driving practices, so why not take that to the skies?

There are airlines out there that make customer service a priority...and people always check there first. The secret of sales is always added value - value is how we decide if we get a "good deal" or not.

Keep your word. Educate your staff. If you haven't sold your company's strengths to your team, how can they sell them to us?

Create a market for departure and landing slots so that all the airlines do not schedule flights that depart and arrive at the same time. That will reduce time wasted by delays and also reduce fuel usage in circling airplanes and in airplanes waiting on the taxiway.

More market forces would work. But the airlines oppose these market forces. So when they go bankrupt do not mourn their passing.

Simple, innovation! Service, rather than profit! Now, there's a novel idea! Capitalism brings the worst out in people!

If I ran an airline, I would standardize ticket prices. One of the major issues that consumers have with the industry is the purchasing of tickets. You NEVER know what you're going to get from day to day, hour to hour. Knowing a stranger sitting next to you might have bought their ticket for $100 less is infuriating. Researching ticket prices is a pain, no matter how many websites "do it for you". The various sites return different prices anyway.

I would fix ticket prices. As an example, every economy seat from Denver to Chicago would cost X amount (including fees). Period, end of story.

These ticket prices would be fixed for a certain amount of time, perhaps 6 months. Then every 6 months, the airline would announce new prices. (Think too, how this might drive sales before a possible price increase.)

The airlines know their operating costs and should be able to develop a fixed price plan based on their calculations. They can account for future fluctuations (like fuel costs) which they can change every 6 months anyway.

Imagine knowing exactly what a flight will cost for one airline but having no idea how high or low tickets will be on other airlines.

Airlines are a part of our vital national infrastructure, and we act as if they're any other business. We need to do several things:

1) Allow foreign ownership, so that the best operators are running the show.

2) Stop taxing the passengers and the industry to death with high landing fees, 9/11 security charges, etc. Yes, they should pay but at a rate that reflects their importance to the overall economic health of the nation. We need to move people and goods reliably and inexpensively to fuel our economic growth. That's why we have relatively low road taxes; air taxes should be the same.

3) Ensure landing fees are based on the aircraft itself and not the number of passengers it holds. An airport slot is the same whether it's taken by a private jet or a larger plane. Thus, the larger plane should not pay more no matter what the private plane lobby thinks. Big planes move more people and goods.

4)Coordinate our entire infrastructure into a system of transport hubs for air, road and rail. This requires Eisenhower Interstate System big thinking and government planning, but we should strongly consider linking our smaller cities and major downtown centers to major airport hubs with high speed (300mph) rail. Eliminate the need for many of the smaller regional airports but without any significant increase in travel time. Indeed, if hubs have less air traffic, there would likely be fewer delayed flights. Use single thru ticketing across our entire network to ensure seamless connections.

Buy more A380's

Put more money (or more advertising?) into Amtrak and entice more people making shorter, regional trips to take the train. A diesel locomotive uses far less fuel than a 747, and with today's airport delays, security checks, and what-not, I don't think a train trip from (for example) Boston to NY would take that much less time than a flight would.

Invest in a viable multi-transit system. Invest in the maglev because it will be fast enough compared to airplanes, smaller maintenance charges over its lifetime, and environmentally better. I hate to agree but our flight attendants are really too old and fat to fit between the aisles. We look ridiculous relative to international airlines. Even the Europeans can recognize this. Airlines are most viable for international flights. Let's be realistic and practical.

Why do so many comments miss the point?

Some say the government needs to do something. Well, but the question was, if you were running an airline, what would you do? Wait for the government? That really helped the folks in New Orleans.

Not to say that government has no place at the table, but that the question was, what do airlines have to do?

As for those who said let market forces do the work, that's an equally silly response. Market forces act on airlines that aren't well run by eliminating them. The question was, essentially, how do you prevent market forces from eliminating your airline.

I was surprised last year to read about the megaliners that some companies were building and marketing. Economies of scale only work to a certain point, then other costs escalate quickly. A large plane requires more fuel, and more fuel requires itself more fuel.

If I were running an airline I'd see about cutting my fleet back to planes with between 80 and 120 seats, and reduce the operating radius of each hub to perhaps 1200 miles. I might offer a few premium non-stop flights, but the emphasis here would be on the word premium. People who want to travel inexpensively would be able to rely on well scheduled, on-time flights, but they might have to count on at least two stop-overs for coast-to-coast travel.

Buy a LOT of fuel sipping Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes once they finally go into production. The 787 will be more like a jet with a 4 or 6 cylinder engine instead of an 8 cylinder engine.

All future plane designs should be built with energy efficiency in mind. Make the jets run off of fuel cells and lightweight batteries when they have to sit on the tarmac for hours. I bet a LOT of jet fuel is wasted on the ground at the airport for various reasons.

Boeing and Airbus need to do what the auto industry is doing with electric cars and hybrids. Make those planes as miserly as possible with the fuel. Maybe someday, they'll invent a way to use super cheap hydrogen as the fuel for planes. Super cheap biofuels for jets? They gotta do something.

The airlines need to insist that Boeing and Airbus build them some ultra efficient planes. Not just the 787, but a whole FLEET of fuel efficient planes.

So American.... Blame fuel prices, blame the economy, "it's a luxury"... You people are a joke, there is one answer, ryanair.com. How is it possible that they can run fares at $10-50 in Europe?

The government needs to step in to regulate the industry. Yes, sounds un-capitalistic but considering the negative effects to business travel the results could be even more far reaching. I think airlines should only be allowed a set profit or even go non-profit. CEOs can still make gigantic salaries but screw shareholders... every citizen is a round-about shareholder.

Idea 2: Why don't oil producing companies and airlines create some kind of partnership? XOM airlines?

Have what is called the base fare. Then add to that the fuel surcharge. I don't get it that airlines are losing money cause fuel costs are up. Raise prices dollar for dollar for increases in fuel costs. Redesign seats. Make seats same throughout the aircraft. Make them non-reclinable. Idiots recline seats and then put their head down on the snack table to sleep. Make lowest prices on internet ticketing. Charge surcharge for travel agent tickets or tickets at airport. I was impressed with Delta recently. Printed boarding passes online. Just dropped bags at airport and went to gate. No lines.

The answer lies in a TIME magazine survey done some years ago with US businessmen who were asked for the "optimum Europe"

- Living in Belgium in a Spanish villa while working for a Swedish company with an Irish wife.

There you go!

Ole.

While all airlines could copy Southwest's business model or have tried, get real. Yes, we can moan about the cost of air travel but the bottom line is that airlines are a business. They need to balance costs so they can churn out a profit. Well, we can cry for them nickel and diming us for a per bag fee or food/drinks. They have figure out a way to make money while keeping their operating costs. It's like when the gas prices were cheap back in the 90s and then this led to a push for more gas guzzling cars (seriously, we don't big old SUVs for simple, everyday driving) and clogging up our transit system. While, I love to travel and it is vital for the economy in certain parts of the country for Hotels, etc to make their business. Maybe this will teach people to conserve the fuel and stay within their economic means.

I think that fuel is the biggest cost of any airline....whether it operates a small fleet or a big fleet. Here are my suggestions:

1. Cutting down the cost is the main goal of any airline. Precious fuel is wasted in gallons/second by planes waiting on runway/taxiway and by circling over the airport waiting to land.......My main suggestion is that given the situation in which the whole industry is in now, airports shld make more runways.......designated runways.....like smaller runways for smaller planes and bigger runways for bigger planes.....rite now I see all planes big and small flying off the same runway....and if a bigger plane has to wait for a smaller plane to take off....its wasting passenger's time and precious fuel. JFK and La Guardia and similar airports handle so much air traffic only on a handful of runways (I dunno the exact number)....if more designated runways were there, I m sure waiting times would significantly reduce.

2. Other suggestion is to regionalise airlines so that they can offer better and frequent service to passengers which will lead to fewer flights taking off without full capacity.

3. FLight schedules shld be based realistically. I feel that different flights departing within an hour of each other shld be clubbed onto one flight which goes full. That ways more or less all airlines operating off an airport will get a fair share, planes will go full, more ppl get to fly per flight which again saves fuel.

4. Develop good train system, faster trains do exist, its high time to improve old train systems like Amtrak...Between cities which are within 4-5 hours of each other, I feel flight and train take same amount of time if one accounts the waiting and security check time into flight time. Ppl usually think since flight time is less than train travel time, they shld fly to the destination but they dont account for time wasted in check in procedures, security check and other related time spent.

5. Let there be more airlineswith better management (I prefer domestic ownership as compared to foreign ownership). More airlines, more competition, lower prices, good deals, efficiency too if done properly.

6. No cost cutting by airlines shld be allowed which would -vely impact aircraft maintenance. Safety is paramount. Security checks are required as the world isnt that safe as it used to be. Many suicide fanatics are around to take advantage of situation if security procedures were lax.

7. Cut down on salaries and bonuses that upper management earns as wat they earn is ridiculous. Instead of paying million dollar bonuses to CEO's money shld be spent on other areas.

One more suggestion but it isnt for airline but more towards flying experience.

Security checks at airports give a headache to almost all of us though they r vital for security and avoiding future 9/11s. Instead of having one security check section for all airlines and flights, there shld be more security check sections. There have been situations and i m sure some of u have been in them when u r standing in queue for a security check worrying abt missing ur flight and there is someone ahead of u who has to board a flight later than u. That situation is simply frustrating and foolish. Its a lose lose situation for both of us as i risk missing my flight and other guy though smart ends up wasting more time at the airport. So smth shld be done to that effect.

Globalisation has made the world and also the flow of resources (whether human / capital) has become as smooth as flow of fluid. Its hightime that American Airlines learns from Experience around the world - such as Cost Effectiveness from Japanese, Craziness from Koreans, Technology from Germans and Marketing which already america is best at. This can help airlines improve the effeciency and bail-out and allready sick airlines industry.

I think that, while some of these ideas are good, others are short-sighted to say the least.

Nationalizing the airlines is probably one of the worst ideas ever. Yes it will likely lead to the struggling airlines' survival, but who cares? Why do we need struggling airlines to survive? I think that situations like BearSterns should be avoided at all costs; there is no reason why tax-payers' money should be used to bail out companies (airlines or otherwise) that cannot survive the market. Yes it's a tough market, but that's the way it is. If we expect to survive as a country, we cannot hope to continue having taxpayers share the debt and failures of companies and none of the profits (when there are some). Aside from that, the nationalization of the airline industry will eventually lead to an unimaginable hike (yes, even given the current situation) in airline ticket prices.

I do, however, think that the government should step in and regulate the price of oil. If this does not happen, there is no way that the consumers themselves, much less the airlines, will survive. This would be the first step towards getting more profits for airlines.

To address alternative fuel ideas: Yes, it's obvious that we need alternative fuel. That's been established as an undeniable fact. Pointing this out should not be worthy of praise at all. That's like saying "we need a solution." That's very helpful. Why not come up with an actual alternative fuel source? Because it's difficult. That's the issue everyone is having.

I think people are losing the big picture. If the average consumer cannot afford an airline ticket, the few who can afford a membership or a first class ticket alone will not be able help the airlines survive any longer than they would have if things stayed the way they are now. On the flip side, making airlines super-cheap and like a public bus (the standing room idea...really?) would be a horrible idea as well because, while it might make things more affordable and might increase capacity, after maybe the first month (being conservative), people will get sick of it and it will be the end of the airlines for that reason. The capacity of airlines right now is fine. People fail to realize that the bigger or heavier the plane, the more fuel it takes to move it. It will probably make things even worse if you have more people on a flight.

As long as current conditions continue (i.e. the government refuses to step in and regulate the price of oil to lower costs), the only thing airlines can really do to hope to stay in business is to focus on CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. Yes, I said it. I dont work for Jetblue or anything, but they are by far the best airline I have experienced when it comes to customer care. Stop charging money for in-flight snacks or sodas. Hire personnel that are competent and qualified and who actually are committed to customer service, not just to getting a check. Schedule flights so there arent unnecessary delays (on the runway or at the gate, both of which UNNECESSARILY BURN FUEL), overbookings, and other avoidable errors. Losing baggage is also unacceptable; is it REALLY that hard? If an airline loses more than 1 bag per week, they deserve to go out of business.

Admittedly, customer satisfaction goes beyond the airlines themselves as well. The entire airport system needs to be rethought. Charging $10.00 for a sandwich in the terminal when you dont have the option of bringing food in from outside is absolutely unacceptable. Be realistic. I understand security concerns, but that doesnt excuse charging $4.00 for a bottle of water that I could buy at any 7-Eleven for $1.29. If airlines started sponsoring lower-cost (read: REASONABLY PRICED) food stands at or near gates, they would make a KILLING on food alone, especially compared to the unbelievably exorbitant prices of airport food. In addition, it would encourage people to fly their airline more often, even if the flight is slightly more expensive than another carrier SIMPLY because they are guaranteed better service with that airline.

It's really not that hard...just ask: "What kind of experience would I want/expect if I were flying?" Or maybe ask "What kind of experience would I NOT want/expect if I were flying?"

i belive we should be offered paper shoes as a doctor would wear durining an operation// to put on our feet when we take off our shoes to pass security point//the carpets are not clean and thousands of your customers walk on them the carpets //a large spread of bacteria can and does occur/ at least offer to throw away paper scrubs to put on thank you//