I read this news piece
Airlines Face Loss of Up to $30 Billion in Revenues in Wake of Coronavirus
….and I find myself torn between two emotions:
and
In the first place, I hate all airlines without regard to race, class, religion, nationality or gender. [25,000 reasons omitted for brevity]
Secondly (according to the article), most of the losses are supposed to befall the Chinese airlines, but considering that they’re owned engines, wings and tails by the loathsome Commie Chinese government, who cares?
Of course, people are going to think that this disruption will mean lower fares and/or less-crowded flights for the rest of us… [pause for scornful laughter] …but the airlines will simply cancel most of their flights, cram the remaining planes to the brim and then (you heard it here first) raise their fares to make up for lost revenue. You see, international travel may feel an impact, especially for those fools who inexplicably visit China all the time, but most U.S. airlines get the bulk of their revenue from domestic flights (i.e. corporate passengers who are largely immune to fare increases anyway). (And you can ignore bullshit articles like this one — I tested the claims, and couldn’t find ONE.)
I know that in a Black Swan scenario, the people most likely to be hurt are people like myself, but at the same time there’s something awfully appealing about watching corporations getting shafted by random events, kinda like what they do to us on a daily basis…
They could fire all the useless TSA parasites, giving them no compensation in any form, to rebalance the books. That move might even reinstill faith in the process and boost sales. Get rid of the gun ban on planes and I might even buy a ticket.
TSA is paid by all of us (Federal Civil Service), so that won’t save the airlines any money.
Kim, my airline sympathy-meter is a negative scale.
Couldn’t find a pic of the negative-meter…
“You see, international travel may feel an impact, especially for those fools who inexplicably visit China all the time, but most U.S. airlines get the bulk of their revenue from domestic flights (i.e. corporate passengers who are largely immune to fare increases anyway).”
Kim, don’t count on it. You may remember who I work for (a LARGE IT player). We just got an e-mail from Corporate that we are free to turn down any domestic travel that can be replaced electronically, including client meetings below the C-Level.