So if all the major airlines went bankrupt, this would benefit the consumer? This would have no appreciable impact on the economy and jobs? The government should've let a multi-billion dollar industry go down because terrorists took over a few planes?
A smart terrorist wouldn't get on the same plane with a bomb in it in the first place. I can't begin to imagine why he'd want to blow it up after everyone's gotten off either.
An airline is a corporation. It is owned by shareholders. Shareholders expect the airline to maintain or increase the value of their shares. They do this by making money. That is what corporations do -- they make money. You've always paid for food, it was just bundled in with your ticket price. You're not going to see the ticket price go down because the cost of food is negligble for you. It's likely to be absorbed in whatever increases in operating costs are hitting the airline at that time. However, airlines are still a competitve business. If one airline can offer lower ticket prices than another one because they've stopped offering free meals, they will do it. If they do it, then there's incentive for other airlines to follow suit. I've explained how easy it would be to sort luggage here. And the price-point of the service would be set so that the demand does not reach 90% of people on the airplane. I'd assume that the airline business has a number of analysts who can research it and find a workable equilibrium.
I'm not sure anything you've has anything to do with what I was talking about. I was mentioning that from a price-perspective, there's no difference in offering an extra service at an increased price or offering a discount for a reduced price. Airlines, being what they are, are pretty effective at using resources effectively (if you're going to argue otherwise, start your own airline first) and so I would assume that they would not start this if it didn't mean it would be profitable and effective. Instead of a complex system of separate queues, one could attach coloured stickers on the priority luggage. Maybe red for priority and the regular ones will do for the others. In the plane I assume they have a place where they store the luggage. Perhaps they could put the luggage into different compartments within there. The sorting could take place when you check your bags which would probably be easier. When unloading a plane, you could unload the priority side first, then the rest afterwards. The increased operational cost (we'll ignore capital costs such as training for simplicity) will be limited here to 1) coloured stickers 2) increased staff wages. They could both easily be paid for through the service charges for priority service, and there'd be room to spare for a profit.
Of course, I'm not a business analyst, but one would think that a major airline would do their research before attempting any sort of major change to existing practices.
They could charge more so less people take advantage of the offer. Then they make more money per person, but less people will buy. Since the total money you make here is the price multiplied by number of people, you can increase one and lower the other by the same proportion and end up with the same value in the end. If you ever notice that the number of people buying your service is too high for it to be effective, increase the price to lower demand so that you can deal with it effectively. I'm sure airline companies know how to do this.
Would you like to purchase a Product Service Plan with that ticket? If this airplane crashes anytime during your flight, we'll give you another similar flight for free! Only 39.95. For 139.95, Flightsquad will deliver the new tickets to your door, pick you up, and drop you off at your local airport should your plane crash.
Do you have any data to support this such as when they stopped offering a meal, what the prices were then, what they are now, and what the inflation was between now and then was, using a price index? Did you also take into account the rising costs associated with air travel and security measures? When Northwest and Delta filed for bankruptcy a couple years ago, was this an indication that they were ripping you off a couple dollars for a sandwhich?
But prices are not fixed, they're determined by the market, assuming it's free. The greater the competition, the greater the incentive to offer lower prices. The old price included a meal but also reflected the cost of a meal. You might expect that if they stopped offering a meal they would cut the price of the ticket, and this might be true but pretty insignificant and hard to determine. The ticket may now cost you two dollars less (nevermind inflation) than it did when they did offer you a meal but you aren't likely to notice the price difference. However, even if the price without a meal is the same, if your competitor starts to offer the same flight without a meal for less, you're going to have to lower your prices too. In the end, the prices tend to adjust as long as there is fair competition.
Charging to get your baggage first is the same as offering a discount if you don't mind them coming out last.
Proof: X is the base rate of a flight with unprioritized luggage delivery. The cost of having prioritized luggage delivery, per person, is Y.
Now you can either charge everyone X + Y and then offer a discount of Y to those who don't need it, or charge everyone X and offer a fee of Y to everyone who does need it. Either way, those who need it are paying X + Y and those who don't are paying X. However, offering it as an added fee gives the appearance of lower prices, which, if you're trying to stay competitive, is important. Removing meals from planes is the same thing. You can offer lower prices than your competition by not including meals in the base price. For those who don't want cold meat, or who don't eat that crap anyway, it's better incentive. It might make it marginally more expensive for those who do eat the meals (assuming it would cost less per person to have meals prepared for everyone than it would to prepare meals for only those who want it), but it would still be just as expensive if you were to offer the discount-method.
I believe he's at a loss for words because he's willing to pay 6.95 a month not to hear music on a website that can be easily disabled using free software.
Are you one of those people that blame all the problems of the world on one person? I hate those people. All the problems in the world are their fault.
Too harsh? Maybe, but people like you really tick me off.
Looks like I misunderstood you, then. I completely agree with your point about people getting to know their neighbours. Living in a city is no excuse not to know the people who live around you. What's really killing us is total anonymity. We're afraid to talk to each other. We're afraid to even acknowledge others around us. That leads to people being afraid to act out to help someone in danger. Thing is there's no easy way to profile a criminal before he acts. Relying too much on that just brings out prejudices that people aren't always aware are there. I'm saying we should take a better look at why people are acting out in criminal ways. It's easy to label people off as 'sick fucks' and lock them up. I think if you look closer at these 'sick fucks' you'll find out they often started out as normal as me and you. There's a lot to be said for the power of the situation. Child abusers are often abused as children themselves. Criminals often resort to crime out of desperation and a lack of options, not because of some innate 'badness.' Not saying everyone's a saint, just that maybe there are bigger things to look at in terms of improving social welfare.
I'm sorry but the only time the military/police isn't a good thing is when individual members are doing bad things, or in happy fantasy land where everyone holds hands and sings in perfect unison without finding ten million reasons to want to kill eachother. Maybe you can easily find ten million reasons to want to kill each other, but I can't. I also can't see excessive military/police presence on the streets as a good thing. For one, it instills fears. Nevermind that laws are not necessarily good merely as a result of being law. Plenty of laws have been enacted now that some might argue are unnecessarily restrictive. Plenty of laws have been repealed that, at one time, might have been considered best to enforce, but no longer are. The last thing the world needs is increased police presence and militarism. It leads to a culture of fear and paranoia and hinders human development. You can see that already in the US. You can see it in China. You can see it in Iran. People will always fight it but that's a reactionary attitude. Why not prevent it in the first place?
Mr. WELCH: Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
Senator RIAA: I know this hurts you. But I may say, Mr. Chairman, on a point of personal privilege, and I would like to finish it--
Mr. WELCH. Senator, I think it hurts you, too, sir.
Senator MCCARTHY. I would like to finish this.
High density forms of DVD will extend this further, so that in 2002 (probably in May!) we shall see a 20 Gbyte disk, and in 2006 (almost certainly in June...) we shall see a 40 Gbyte disk.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps I could interest you in an upgrade? Even better, it would be covered under the Best Buy Service Plan
as far as the cbc goes, they don't: http://stats.cbc.ca/olympics_medals.asp?sort=gold
and to think: so far no one had tried to work in the bread loaves.
None of those examples have anything to do with the question. What was faulty with their business model exactly and why was it working before?
So if all the major airlines went bankrupt, this would benefit the consumer? This would have no appreciable impact on the economy and jobs? The government should've let a multi-billion dollar industry go down because terrorists took over a few planes?
A smart terrorist wouldn't get on the same plane with a bomb in it in the first place. I can't begin to imagine why he'd want to blow it up after everyone's gotten off either.
An airline is a corporation. It is owned by shareholders. Shareholders expect the airline to maintain or increase the value of their shares. They do this by making money. That is what corporations do -- they make money. You've always paid for food, it was just bundled in with your ticket price. You're not going to see the ticket price go down because the cost of food is negligble for you. It's likely to be absorbed in whatever increases in operating costs are hitting the airline at that time. However, airlines are still a competitve business. If one airline can offer lower ticket prices than another one because they've stopped offering free meals, they will do it. If they do it, then there's incentive for other airlines to follow suit. I've explained how easy it would be to sort luggage here. And the price-point of the service would be set so that the demand does not reach 90% of people on the airplane. I'd assume that the airline business has a number of analysts who can research it and find a workable equilibrium.
Of course, I'm not a business analyst, but one would think that a major airline would do their research before attempting any sort of major change to existing practices.
They could charge more so less people take advantage of the offer. Then they make more money per person, but less people will buy. Since the total money you make here is the price multiplied by number of people, you can increase one and lower the other by the same proportion and end up with the same value in the end. If you ever notice that the number of people buying your service is too high for it to be effective, increase the price to lower demand so that you can deal with it effectively. I'm sure airline companies know how to do this.
I think you fail to fully understand the workings of a free-economy.
What? No space elevator?
Would you like to purchase a Product Service Plan with that ticket? If this airplane crashes anytime during your flight, we'll give you another similar flight for free! Only 39.95. For 139.95, Flightsquad will deliver the new tickets to your door, pick you up, and drop you off at your local airport should your plane crash.
Confirmation bias!
Proof: X is the base rate of a flight with unprioritized luggage delivery. The cost of having prioritized luggage delivery, per person, is Y.
Now you can either charge everyone X + Y and then offer a discount of Y to those who don't need it, or charge everyone X and offer a fee of Y to everyone who does need it. Either way, those who need it are paying X + Y and those who don't are paying X. However, offering it as an added fee gives the appearance of lower prices, which, if you're trying to stay competitive, is important. Removing meals from planes is the same thing. You can offer lower prices than your competition by not including meals in the base price. For those who don't want cold meat, or who don't eat that crap anyway, it's better incentive. It might make it marginally more expensive for those who do eat the meals (assuming it would cost less per person to have meals prepared for everyone than it would to prepare meals for only those who want it), but it would still be just as expensive if you were to offer the discount-method.
I marked this post as troll while using the scroll-button on my mouse. So I'm replying to reverse it.
But what do I know.
Humour must be lost on you. But I suppose some folks just don't get it. Unless, of course, the dots are connected for them.
The store (as a symbolic representation of one employee) had plenty of good reasons not to toss him out. They just chose not to use any of them.
Are you one of those people that blame all the problems of the world on one person? I hate those people. All the problems in the world are their fault. Too harsh? Maybe, but people like you really tick me off.
Looks like I misunderstood you, then. I completely agree with your point about people getting to know their neighbours. Living in a city is no excuse not to know the people who live around you. What's really killing us is total anonymity. We're afraid to talk to each other. We're afraid to even acknowledge others around us. That leads to people being afraid to act out to help someone in danger. Thing is there's no easy way to profile a criminal before he acts. Relying too much on that just brings out prejudices that people aren't always aware are there. I'm saying we should take a better look at why people are acting out in criminal ways. It's easy to label people off as 'sick fucks' and lock them up. I think if you look closer at these 'sick fucks' you'll find out they often started out as normal as me and you. There's a lot to be said for the power of the situation. Child abusers are often abused as children themselves. Criminals often resort to crime out of desperation and a lack of options, not because of some innate 'badness.' Not saying everyone's a saint, just that maybe there are bigger things to look at in terms of improving social welfare.
Mr. WELCH: Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? Senator RIAA: I know this hurts you. But I may say, Mr. Chairman, on a point of personal privilege, and I would like to finish it-- Mr. WELCH. Senator, I think it hurts you, too, sir. Senator MCCARTHY. I would like to finish this.