CO benefits mightily from cost savings imposed during its two trips to bankruptcy in the early 90s. In that sense, they could be said to have extreme foresight. They also have made a conscious decision to focus on business travelers as their core market, another decision that seems to be paying dividends. -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alireza Alivandivafa Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 11:51 AM To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Industry Changes I think CO is a good example of a legacy carrier that is treating its employees decently, offering good fares and keeping up service with things like meals on longer (and I mean over 2 hours) flights and the like. They have a seat-mile cost around that of WN according to recent measurements, mostly because they do things in house. They do their own catering (decent too) and keep their costs way down. A cool enough concept that I have Onepass now and am considering going elite on them next year (as I fly a lot more now). <<I don't think service/food alone is going to save UA, AA or DL. Yes people want good service, but they want it cheaply too. If UA, AA, and DL can't find a way to do that, they are going to continue to have hard times. I suspect that most people don't care that they don't get the bad airline food anymore. I for one am not about to choose what airline I fly based on whether or not they serve food. I think BAHA, you are the exception to the rule here.>>