posted by admin on Jul 4
But even first class passengers could not avoid flight delays, break downs of air conditioning on planes, and other recurring problems in air travel. Another factor behind the deterioration in services during the past couple of years is the large increase in occupancy rates on planes. After open competition on ticket prices became common due to deregulation, airlines naturally cut back on of the services that had been provided because they could not compete on price.
Indeed, under competitive pressure, they even improved some of their services to premier customers, including faster lines for them to through security checks, special rooms where they could be more comfortable while waiting for flights, and faster baggage delivery. Of course, lower prices and greater competition made air travel available to millions of men, women, and children that would have been financially out of their reach under the old system.
The major airlines, like American and United, tried to meet this competition while at the same time offering superior service to first class and business passengers since airlines would be induced to stagger their flights more than at present over day and during the week, and perhaps even to adjust their schedules to expected to weather conditions.
With high occupancy rates, it becomes difficult to rebook on other planes when flights are cancelled, baggage delivery is slowed and more baggage gets misplaced, the limited number of toilets on flights are more intensively used, and have become dirtier and more likely to clogg up, overbooking grows to much bigger problem, and delays longer even when the number of flights do not increase because some passengers and baggage are late for connecting flight.
So the main way available to airlines to attract customers from competitors was to offer higher quality services, such as better food, shorter checkin lines, more empty seats on typical flight, and the like. Weightbased fees encourage smaller planes to clog runways during peak periods whereas they should be encouraged to use offpeak times. After open competition on ticket prices became common due to deregulation, airlines naturally cut back on of the services that had been provided because they could not compete on price.
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