Price Isn’t Everything

John F. Lawrence’s Nov. 9 column, “Rewriting the Case Study of People Express” is well done and enlightening.

There is no question that Donald Burr bit off more than he could chew in an attempt to establish his carrier as a dominant low-cost airline. However, that was not his greatest error.

Burr made several mistakes, any one of which would ultimately have put him into his current position.

Airline customers look at four proposals in each airline’s offer of transportation--price, convenience, service and reliability.

People Express offered price only. While passengers may have an initial attraction to low cost, they will resist losing service or being stranded and starved on a regular basis, despite fare differentials.

For these reasons, People Express, having reached its peak in passengers carried, faced an ever declining number of customers willing to chance it again. Recently, Burr offered improved service but it was too late.

Finally, Lawrence’s observation that management of Peoples Express was handled in a sort of ad hoc advisory manner should send chills through the spines of all airline passengers.

Air carriers are required by law to operate with the “highest degree of care.”

This means a commitment to safety in all aspects of the operation above everything else. To achieve that, discipline and authority have to be strictly maintained.

Burr, like many others in the age of deregulation, thought he could bake an airline cake with only one ingredient. Cakes aren’t made that way.

WILLIAM E. DUNKLE

Ret. Sr. V.P., Flight Operations

United Air Lines

Camarillo