Airlines are looking for ways to add extra perks and benefits for coach-class customers who pay for a full-fare ticket. The Dallas Morning News says "the recent spate of new charges and fees is giving airlines a chance to better differentiate what that high-dollar traveler enjoys from what the bottom-dollar traveler gets. By exempting full-fare passengers and elite members of frequent-flier programs from the new fees, the airlines are making it better to pay more -– even if it is only through the absence of pain newly created for the bargain flier."
That, the paper says, is just one way that airlines can find a way to give something a little extra to the full-fare business traveler, who may have paid $800 dollar for her coach-class seat only to sit next to a leisure traveler who paid $75 for a seat in an identical class of service.
American Airlines executive Dan Garton says his airline wants to provide the same baseline service to all fliers –- safe flights, on-time reliability, clean jets and good customer service. "But beyond that," the Morning News writes, "American would like to charge the low-fare customers -– often leisure travelers –- for a lot of things they previously got at no extra cost and give its best customers more services and extra perks for free, he said." Those things, of course, include items like checked bags, seat assignments for desirable seats and charges for processing frequent-flier tickets.
Garton says AA is looking for other ways to help add value to the higher fares paid by its best customers, which the Morning News calls "the lifeblood of airline profitability." Garton tells the paper "there are features and products that we would like to go over and beyond that for people who either pay us more fares or fly us more often, in most cases both." For example, AA now tends to reserve many of its most desirable coach-class seats –- aisle and window seats near the front of a plane –- for last-minute customers, who are often business travelers booking higher fares.
Some airlines have begun charging customers for those seats, but Garton says AA has to move carefully in that area. He says AA has studied the idea, and could possibly add fees for desirable coach-class seats -- but waive them for its elite and full-fare coach customers. Garton tells the Morning News that access to a flight's best seats "is still viewed to be one of the benefits of being a frequent flier or premium customer. So we would have to think very carefully about how you'd handle the revenue-generating aspects of this."
Source: usatoday.com
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