IS DELTA KILLING ITSELF BY TRYING TO KILL AIRTRAN?
At a recent airline investment conference, AirTran CEO Joe Leonard said, “We much prefer a Delta trying to make money than one that really doesn’t care about making money. If they return to profitability, that’s fine. If they take their lower costs and say ‘let’s try to kill [AirTran],’ which is what they’ve been trying to do for the last seven years, they’ll lose hundreds of millions of dollars.” As an example, Leonard said that three years ago, after AirTran announced twice-daily Atlanta-Los Angeles service, Delta responded by matching its fares. As a result, according to AirTran estimates, Delta turned a route that had been producing $30 million in annual profits to one that lost $80 million annually. (Ted Reed, TheStreet.com) WHAT ELSE CAN THEY DO TO TICK US OFF? As you know, airlines currently advertise fares that initially omit some government taxes and fees, which is allowed, though the uniform nature of those charges makes shopping for fares fairly easy. But if the large airlin
