I wonder what the solution is for an airline trying to follow this model of "better experience for a tiny amount more money".
It seems like you should be able to simply advertise the fact that yes, we cost exactly $20 more than the cheap guy. And here's all stuff you get for that (dignity, comfort, sodapop and your bags in the hold). And here's how small a fraction of your whole trip that $20 actually represents. And oh, here's how small a fraction of your whole trip the entire $179 you're paying for the flight is.
But there's just so much innumeracy and irrational behavior to overcome before you can get that message across. Try selling the above to the average flyer who will happily take the $159 seat on the airline that charges him $50 to check a bag over the $179 seat that doesn't have any added fees.
I hope somebody cracks it. It seems like you could do it with a whole bunch of published (and advertised) transparency in your pricing and value offered, combined with a campaign encouraging buyers to "sort by happiness" or whatever when browsing at kayak.com.
While not that explicit, that's exactly what Virgin America is doing.
For me it is an easy trade off. When faced recently with a 3 day jaunt out East, my pact with myself was to fly Virgin, or not to fly at all. It's the difference between an acceptable experience and a high chance of a very unacceptable one. Seriously - I have no idea why there hasn't been a mass rejection of the flying experiences in the USA.
Some folks like chasing Air points or status, but ask first - do you really want to spend even more time getting lousy service on a lousy airline?
I'm lucky enough to be based in New Zealand, and these days our flag carrier is simply great. Their Hobbit safety video just came out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlRbrB_Gnc
Reason #2: no viable alternatives. We don't have a decent passenger rail system in the U.S. and our population centers are hours|days apart by automobile.
It seems like you should be able to simply advertise the fact that yes, we cost exactly $20 more than the cheap guy. And here's all stuff you get for that (dignity, comfort, sodapop and your bags in the hold). And here's how small a fraction of your whole trip that $20 actually represents. And oh, here's how small a fraction of your whole trip the entire $179 you're paying for the flight is.
But there's just so much innumeracy and irrational behavior to overcome before you can get that message across. Try selling the above to the average flyer who will happily take the $159 seat on the airline that charges him $50 to check a bag over the $179 seat that doesn't have any added fees.
I hope somebody cracks it. It seems like you could do it with a whole bunch of published (and advertised) transparency in your pricing and value offered, combined with a campaign encouraging buyers to "sort by happiness" or whatever when browsing at kayak.com.