Network Airlines: Not Dead Yet
Joel Widzer

 

might I add:

Alaska Airlines has IMO some of the worst maintained aircraft, which had led to a crash several years back and a whistleblower mechanic spoke up about their shoddy maintenances and putting non-airworthy planes back in service. they fired and blackballed that mechanic. his name was John Liotine -- do a google search.

also, JetBlue is a poor attempt to copy Southwest Airlines's model. the author above may be poo-poohing on discount airfares, but many Southwest routes are very cheap and their ticketing methodology is pleasantly straight-forward and devoid of the "mystery pricing" of many other carriers. (if you use epinions.com, do a search for my little rant on JetBlue. my username in there is also tritium_pie )

I've had generally bad service and quality with United Airlines as well.

Northwest/KLM are pretty good.

Southwest IMO

in short:
- don't fly Alaska Airlines. they are dangerous.
- don't fly JetBlue. they are incompetent.

 

I tend to agree with the general theme of the article. Many companies have attempted to undercut the majors, even when the large airlines (in terms of routes, etc.) were controlled by the FAA. One spectacularly bad example was Sir Freddy Laker's People Express. One thing that I do find disturbing however is the major airlines attempts to compete with the cut-rate carriers. Pay for meals, diminished customer service staff and the like will not, in the end, serve the customer well.