Food can still be healthy and taste good.

As far as the airlines go, I am lucky to get full service being in the military, but I cannot imagine a trip to Europe without a meal. The Airline industry cutting back can only hurt sales and unless they change their business model, I cannot see many of them surviving for long.

Now…close your eyes and imagine the following conversation somewhere in an airport terminal….

Customer A: This really bites. United cuts out the meals, then substitutes with these puny pretzels. What a joke. Who needs it?

Customer B: You are so right. We don’t need puny pretzels in place of a real meal….

United employee within earshot: Hey Frank, did you hear that? They don’t want the pretzels any more. Dump ‘em!

And there you have it, folks. Market research at its finest.

@Cheryl,

Yes, Applebee’s is a chain of casual dining restaurants. It is primarily North American, but they are in 16 other countries as well:

http://www.applebees.com/ilocations.aspx#locations

Why?

Because it’s true that what people say what they want and what they actually want are two different things. Applebee’s was smart to find out from their existing customers what they want and they gave it to them.

Why can’t the airlines do the same thing? Do they think they have a monopoly to the point where their customers don’t matter anymore? Do they think we don’t have a choice? But we do, don’t we?

In my view, the reason you shouldn’t compete merely on price is inextricably bound up with a more complete view of what we experience and value. I’m not a big fan of Applebee’s either, but the whole experience of eating at a restaurant should be taken into consideration when choosing what to put on a menu and not merely whether or not something on your plate in front of you is actually healthy or at or below a certain price. Most people I know understand this intuitively and value and choose which restaurants they go to and what they buy based on the whole story and not just a part of it.

The airlines are constantly in trouble and in my view most of it stems from the way our economy works, their rather unscrupulous business practices in always wanting to pass costs on to the consumer that they incur as a result of their shortsightedness , and the way they (usually wrongly) bet off of oil futures. The one exception for a long time of course has been Southwest Airlines and you notice they’ve got the sense not to charge for bags. If the airlines were smart, they’d raise their fare prices $10-15 per flight rather than charge for bags (since it is always going up and down and most consumers don’t have a way to measure why you’re paying $250 as opposed to $450 for a flight). But, these latest moves by the airlines simply show they’re completely disconnected from what their customers really want or care about.

When I travel internationally, I really like Lufthansa though it’s been some time since I’ve been up in the air outside the US. What’s important to me about an airline is exceptional service, the ability to have enough planes in the air to make scheduling very easy even on only a day or two’s notice, and an airline that doesn’t sweat the little stuff (like United – an airline I absolutely despise for that very reason). If I have to pick between flying on a plane with rude stewardesses and late flights versus a smooth and easy on-time flight and the on-time flight costs $100 more – you can bet I’m going for the on-time flight with nice stewardesses and my guess is that most regular business travelers would do the same. For the average consumer, it’s likely not as important but if all you do is travel these things become a lot more important than some people realize.

I’ve done a lot of business traveling and really like US Airways for that though it helps to have the main hub in your home town (Phoenix, AZ – pretty easy to get a one way almost anywhere in the US). And, for what it’s worth, I pay extra to be able to use the airport clubs – getting work done between flights is a lot easier and more comfortable and for $300+ or so a year it’s definitely worth it.

But this all comes back to experience – what it is you value and what it is you think is important. I’m sure others out there would disagree with the way I do things – business owners just need to take into account more than just their own view in competing strictly on price.

In our business, if we competed on price we’d compete with Starbucks and the other McDonald’s of the coffee world. I don’t want to go there. Sometimes our price will be less, sometimes more than what some impersonal gigantic multinational corporation is going to charge. We don’t want to compete with them and consider them nothing more than advertising for us for people to eventually find and buy our products. The quality we put out is everything their products should be but can’t be because they have to mass produce a product to keep up with their demand.

But, like most exceptional small businesses – we’re about providing the best to our customers and stuff they can’t get anywhere else. And, we love doing it. People are willing to pay big money for that and they should – because it’s something of great value in this world.

Could be worse though… You might buy a $6.00 sandwich at one of the pre-flight kiosks and get charged $25 for the ‘extra carry-on’….

jegan