ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some conspicuous success stories in the airline industry and presents a few areas where the jury is still out as to their position on the continuum from success to failure. One could argue on either side as to whether pricing strategies have been successful or unsuccessful. From the viewpoint of stimulating traffic, building load factor, maintaining or even increasing market share, being everything to everyone, and coping with economic downturns, airline pricing strategies have been quite successful. Just about the time the US airline industry was almost deregulated with respect to its domestic operations, the average passenger fare represented the fare that was paid by most travelers— in other words, the distribution of fare reflected a bell-shaped curve. The successful low-cost, low-fare airlines have remained extremely focused not only in the type of service they provide but also with respect to the use of a single type of aircraft with different versions.
