Midwest won't hire pilots back

[Colonel Savage]

And when you add the fact that MaxJet, Eos and SilverJet all went out of business with all premium class service, it sends a message about what pax want.

Who wants to pay a bunch of bucks for meltdowns during weather events, long lines, etc. May as well go on the cheap with lower expectations.

 

[fam62c]

I thought United announced a month or two ago they were ripping out 25% of their business class seats on Trans-Atlantic flights and replacing with coach due to weakness in the premium product.

Our Flight Attendants (using the fare code off the seat maps) say that most of the people sitting in our Business class are airport upgrades not passengers that paid for full fare business class seats at time of booking.

Exactly my point, most people won't pay extra and reduced seating simply results in a self-imposed "revenue cap" on the aircraft, especially in a weak economy. Time after time they have done surveys that have proved the following: first, the vast majority of travelers shop for the cheapest fare. Second, everybody loves more comfort and amenities but almost nobody will pay more for it so the airlines that spend more to provide a more luxurious product have to eat most of those costs.

I have always believed that Midwest would have been more successful with a standard, dual class model right from the beginning. They didn't need to "differentiate" themselves with premium service, they did it with direct flights. The problem with their premium model was that it only made money in a small number of markets and required a very favorable economy and competitive environment to work. Their model severely limited their expansion opportunities and caused the company to remain very small which eventually created a cost problem. It also invited competitors like AirTran into the market who knew Midwest could never match their fares and be profitable doing it with 25% less seats in the planes and no overall corporate economy of scale to spread out their fixed costs. I think that AirTran will come out with majority ownership of the MKE market eventually because they have the cost structure to make it work and they seem to want the market bad enough to really make an effort. Midwest has given up as far as I can tell and Delta has enough on their plate that they will eventually get tired of fighting AirTran in MKE for a market that's not all that important to their post-merger network.