Once upon time, most countries had an airline that was the 'flag carrier'. They were subsidisied. Even in America airlines were subsidised in some form or other or at the very least 'protected'. Ticket prices were mandated in the US by the Civil Aeronautics Board. It was a matter of prestige for the countries concerned. The result was a cost protected worldwide cartel. High airfares and a bloated overpaid bone idle workforce. Only well off people could fly on Pan Am, Delta, United, TWA, Continental, Braniff, British Airways, Air France, Aer Lingus, Swissair, Sabena, CSA, Air Canada etc etc. It was a great time to work for the airlines, high pay, travel, glamour. It had it all. Remember the movie? 'Catch me if you can?'. Halcyon days.
But one day a new man appeared on the scene. His name was Herb Kelleher and he was from Texas. He invented an airline called Southwest. They had low fares, minimum employees and low overheads. The big boys were horrified and tried to kill his little airline. But they failed and now most of them are either gone to the great hangar in the sky or desperately trying to compete with all the other low cost airlines that have sprung up. All copying in one form or other the Southwest mode. The old style airlines must change or die. That includes CSA, Lada, Ryanair or Easyjet will gobble them up unless they go low fare.
Ryanair is a good example of the new low fare model. In theory an Irish airline it is in fact a multinational airline with bases everywhere and a huge fleet of Boeing 738's with more being delivered every day. It has the power and muscle to undercut any airline that trys to compete with it. Soon there will be only one or two airlines left in Europe and one of them will be called Ryanair. A commercial for another low fare airline pointed out that it was cheaper to fly to Germany than the cab fair to the airport.
Delta won't survive unless it competes with the Southwest's and the Jetblue's. People no longer want to pay big money to fly. It's as simple as that.
