Big Six airlines must simplify fare structures

Business travel columnist Joe Brancatelli writes in USA Today that one of the factors destroying the Big Six (American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United and US Airways) is their intractable opposition to fixing their Byzantine fare structure that depresses profitable leisure travel, curtails legitimate business travel demand and confuses everyone. The Big Six are unwilling to accept the fact that fixing the fares is one of the only sure paths to survival. They stubbornly ignore the fact that the only consistently profitable carriers are rational-fare airlines such as Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier and AirTran. They blithely dismiss the fact that America West has gone from the brink of extinction to a string of profitable quarters after simplifying its fares.

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