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Old 10-21-2012, 09:04 AM   #49
Ryan Coke
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Join Date: Feb 2003
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I'll make 2 points:
-inflight Entertainment is due for major change next year. I expect a wifi based service that has free content, and eventually pay for Internet. When we got liveTV it was cutting edge, and having a free content and a screen at every seat was bett than most for IFE (inflight entertainment). But it is true that it has fallen behind now and isn't as reliable as we would hope. WJ is working to improve it.

-extra charges--almost everyone at WJ would agree in the disdain for them. Unfortunately they have become a competitive reality, determined by the customer. We held off on many of those charges after everyone else had instituted them, and tried to market those as reasons to choose us over the competitor. But most people don't compare bag fees, or seat selection fees. They look at base fare and book based in that. So we would lose customers who would fly on someone else and then pay a bunch of ancillary fees. That kind if thing was studied and tracked, and I have seen many anecdotal examples of this.

For cedrameter who takes USAirways with 0 checked bags, then he can save a few bucks at times. But if you decide to check 1 bag, suddenly you have lost whatever savings you thought you had on the base fare.

So the ancillary fee thing became an issue of losing money and guests, versus adding them as well (usually lower than the competitors however) and sacrificing some of our philosophy. If more people had booked with us because of our lack of fees we would have kept it that way, but it was a losing battle.
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