We have more consumer protection if we buy a loaf of bread or a car than if we buy an airline ticket.

The current situation allows the airlines to profit from poor customer service.  We need to change the model so they profit from good customer service and are penalized for bad customer service.  We need an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights.

Should established carriers be allowed to sell tickets below cost, and below startup carriers' fares, so as to starve the startup carrier into bankruptcy?

Does this benefit us, the traveling public?  To see new carriers promising lower priced travel, then failing after predatory tactics by established airlines?

If a dinosaur airline executive claims the sun is shining, you better bring an umbrella.

Whether it be due to stupidity or dishonesty, the latest excuse for the dinosaur airlines' financial disaster fails to stand up to a factual examination.

United has been in bankruptcy since December 2002 and keeps delaying its exit from Chapter 11, seemingly unable to bring itself back to financial health.

It has laid off staff and reduced salaries of those that remain.  It has taken a $6.6 billion taxpayer bailout.  And still it is in bankruptcy.

But read here about a $15 billion asset which you won't find the airline admitting to - indeed, on its balance sheet, this asset is valued as a $840 million liability!

What gives?

After putting the squeeze on its employees and its suppliers, it was perhaps inevitable that financially struggling AA would next put the squeeze on its customers.

But in a mindlessly gratuitous insult to its customers, AA chooses to squeeze more seats into its 757s and A300s, even though it is suffering the lowest percentages of filled planes of any of the big six carriers.

How stupid is that - adding more seats when you can't even fill the seats you already have?

Undoubtedly, Concorde is the most beautiful and best known passenger plane in the world.

Although the planes are no longer new, they have been lovingly maintained and upgraded. They have comparatively low flight hours and are certified as airworthy until 2009 (with further extensions possible).

But now, British Airways and Air France announce a double blow : They will both withdraw their planes from service in October 03, and they are refusing to sell them to any other airline to operate. Why?

In only a decade in the 1950s-60s, Boeing won itself unquestioned dominance as the world's best passenger aircraft manufacturer.

But after two decades of resting on its laurels, Boeing is now equally obviously losing the right to that title, while Airbus is winning on every front, with every airplane type.

In this five part series, we chronicle Boeing's rise to success, explain how it then lost its dominant position, and offer suggestions for its future.

One of the fundamental tenets of American capitalism is that competition is good for everyone, including even the competing companies.

Maybe part of the problem in the airline industry at present is due to its protected nature. Let's not continue to give them taxpayer handouts to perpetuate their loss making inefficiencies.

Instead, we should fully implement the American ideal and bring full free competition to our skies, by allowing international investors and airlines open access. This article rebuts every possible reason naysayers advance in an attempt to preserve the status quo.

Emirates is an amazing airline.  It combines high rates of growth and high quality service with high levels of profitability.

This has caused some detractors to suggest that Emirates enjoys unfair advantages because it allegedly gets a break on its jet fuel purchases and gets unlimited capital for investment from its owner, the Dubai government.

Is there any truth in either of these two claims?  We run the numbers and come up with clear answers. 

The market dominance of the major traditional airlines is no longer guaranteed.

New low cost competitors not only offer lower fares, but also, in many cases, better service. And with massively lower operating costs, these new airlines can withstand the price slashing tactics the major airlines have used in the past to bully small airline startups out of business.

The traditional response of major airlines to new startups - to slash prices and increase flights on competitive routes - may, this time, do more harm than good to the dinosaur airlines. 

Should the airlines be treated as a special case and given still more cash (after the $5 billion in payments just over a year ago)?

What would happen to our ability to travel conveniently and affordably if several major airlines went bankrupt? Are there alternatives to simply giving more billions of dollars to the airlines to keep them alive?

Find the answers these questions in this article.

Described as having 'made a number of mind-numbingly irresponsible financial decisions over the past year' by his own staff, United Airlines' Chairman James Goodwin is now predicting the once proud carrier may perish within a year.

But, in my opinion, the most mind-numbingly irresponsible action of all was Goodwin's semi-public letter, released just two days ago.

This, along with many other examples of strange actions by the airlines, makes me wonder if the airlines are suffering from a collective death wish.

I bounce some ideas to improve the current airline service problems off Aloha Airline's Senior VP of Business Development. The sad conclusion - it will never be as easy as pre-11 Sept, and those lines aren't getting any shorter any time soon.

Read an online transcript of our discussion.

Read about how Europe's success story airline is proposing to give away, for free, up to 10% of its tickets, and often charges no more than $15 for roundtrip flights to destinations as far as 1000 miles away. Then wonder with me, why it is that our US carriers can't copy some of low fare carrier Ryanair's three part recipe for success?

Also, will your favorite airline go broke and this week's stupidest airfare sale.

Even the airlines now agree that their present pricing no longer seems to work. But they don't seem able to come up with a better system!'

This article explains the challenges that airlines face, and also dispels the myth that 'discount' carriers make money from selling cheap tickets.

Here are some suggestions from readers about what should be changed to restore fairness and encourage air travel. These suggestions are in response to the article 'Air Fares Aren't Fair'.

Send a copy of this article to your favorite airline CEO!

With an ineptness that only airline executives can achieve, the airlines are adopting the totally wrong strategy to reverse their present death spiral. And, inevitably, the main victims of their errors are us, their long suffering customers.

Here, in simple language - intended to be understood even by airline executives - is an analysis of what went wrong and what needs to be corrected.

The last time there was an airline bankruptcy, some airlines failed to follow the obligations imposed on them by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001.

Here's an explanation of their obligations - and your rights - in such situations.

Delta announced plans to create another low cost subsidiary airline. This will replace its already existing low cost subsidiary, Delta Express, which apparently is not a commercial success.

Is there any reason to expect that Delta's next attempt will be any more successful? I think not!

Six Steps to Success for United Airlines : With a new CEO from outside the industry, and a Chapter 11 enabling them to start afresh, UA are at a major crossroads.

In a desperate search for solutions, they are paying $1.5 million monthly to a management consultancy for ideas and advice. I give them six action items for free.

It is one thing to preferentially reward one's 'best' frequent fliers, but it is an entirely different thing to penalize other frequent fliers.

Delta's recent changes to its frequent flier program have a major sting in their tail that we must not allow to continue. This column suggests what you should do in response.

Sir Richard Branson is a genius at scoring public relations coups.

His open letter to Geoff Dixon creates a spectacular 'win-win' for Branson (and perhaps a lose-lose for Dixon!).

Whatever now happens, the certain result is that Branson will earn substantial more publicity for himself and his airline, in the 'underdog' role that he portrays so well.