Oh creeps... this alphabet soup is getting worse.
For some time I have been speaking of Low Cost and Legacy airlines morphing into HVC - Hybrid Value Carriers. As LCCs mature - many of them seem to fall prey to wanting to become - well Legacy Airlines.
2 Good examples of this are the following:
Mango (South Africa) has just launched its business product - it now offers two packages of products - Mango Flex and Mango Plus. Yes friends - once again the airlines are showing their true colors by well confusing the consumers.
Meanwhile back in the USA - the newly mega-sized Delta has given in to its baser instincts (and profit motive) and adopted Northwest's baggage policy. The numbers are just too compelling to resist. So effective immediately $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second will now apply. Last week when I flew on Delta - I asked one of the CSRs at check in whether they thought charging was a good idea. Her response was - she hoped DL never charged - her colleagues at the other airlines all felt it was counter productive and caused greater customer service hassles and longer times not shorter to process customers. Well so much for that then!
There are hidden costs in the unbundling of the product. UPC airlines I believe will prevail but I still firmly believe that there is a building overhang of unhappy customers, staff and then there is the taxman...
Hmm we shall see - maybe sooner than later
Cheers
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