The Canadian debacle has a nice pointed tip on your point. Canadian Government introduced a $24CAD tax on round-trips, regardless of the ticket price. $99 Edmonton/Calgary shuttle flights on WestJet were cut by a significant amount (30%.) The same government also required that AC continue to service smaller communities that AC and Canadian served for three years after they were 'permitted' to bail out CP. Many of these smaller routes did feed AC's mainline flights out of major centers, but they also provided a link from smaller communities to their nearest major city. But guess what happened as soon as the 3 years was up, they announced they were slashing service. Why? $24 in a $140 ticket from small-town Quebec to Montreal is a lot of money, so customer's were driving or not going. In many cases the pax connecting through YUL to points beyond (a US style feeder network) couldn't sustain the service. Flights between Seattle and Vancouver have greatly reduced on AC and UA. Alaska has picked up quite of bit of the slack (to serve their expanding SEA based hub), but not all of it. Oddly, it's convenient schedules that make many of the mainline airlines appealing for travelers, but it's now a case of deadly economics. Matthew On Saturday, September 14, 2002, at 05:17 PM, RWM wrote: > The issue is, as Dennis points out, you must plan for the worst. > Especially > so now that the cost of missing a flight - for whatever reason -- means > greater penalties. > > That effective reduction in productivity and value proposition is > among the > factors causing the short-haul/high-fare markets to collapse. The > security > debacle has become the industry's Viet Nam: "we had to kill the > industry, > to save it". > > - Bob Mann > -- > - R.W. Mann & Company, Inc. >> Airline Industry Analysis > Port Washington, NY 11050 >> tel 516-944-0900, fax -7280 > mailto:RWM@RWMann.com >> URL http://www.RWMann.com/ > > > Dennis W Zeuch wrote: >> >> still happens to often >> I spent over 2 hours in line at Delta Tampa earlier this year (one >> machine >> screening the entire concourse-reached by a train shuttle-) >> Also Las Vegas most anytime has loooonnnggg lines (America West and ?) >> Besides you cant count on line being quick-still being told to get to >> airport 90-120 min prior to flight departure and lots of us lump it >> all >> together--ya gotta leave many hours before your flight, drive to >> airport, try >> to park, shuttle to terminal, line to airline checkin, line for >> security, >> line at gate. The whole process is a mess I think the blame is all >> lumped >> into one catagory---Security delays. >> (probably should also blame the carriers for cutting back on staff so >> severly >> that checkins also take forever) >> Dennis