Only the strong survive, but it helps if you're smart and have a little bit of luck.

 

The high-fare airlines (American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United and USAir) can not survive in their present form.  When there are low-fare airlines are eating directly at their customers in a commodity marketplace and without the thumb of government on the scale to help them, it's only a matter of time until some of they will succumb.  They will have to make significant wage reductions and decrease their size or go out of business.

The factors going against the high-fare airlines are so overwhelming that I do not feel that there is any hope.  Bad management decisions (many made during the false economy of the 'dot com' bubble), high labor costs driven by overly powerful unions to achieve "industry leading wages", restrictive "scope" clauses reducing the airline's ability to move into new markets quickly or by-pass fortress hubs, constraining work rules, a management stampede to have a world-wide network regardless of the bottom line, incompatible fleet mixes, the customer is the enemy attitude....   the list goes on and on.

Most of the employees of the high-fare airlines remember Eastern, Branniff and PanAm yet will ride their employer all the way into the ground.  They will be unable to pull-up in time to save themselves.  Shaving a few pennies by reducing the allocation of pretzels and stopping the printing of pocket flight schedules is not enough.  Generating a few more dollars by charging for heavier or larger luggage is not enough.  Reducing the number of employees, planes and routes is not enough.

Some high-fare airlines have dropped the requirements of a Saturday night stay over.  This is the major differentiator between high-fare and low-fare airlines.  The result is an influx of business travelers.  Now the question is whether they can make any money.  They are attempting to change their business model.  Can or will any of the other follow?