And that, in all fairness (no pun intended), is where your argument does not equate to any business model. akonradi, being in the industry, has a unique insight into the costs and cost calculations going into the fare structures. At the same time though, he may be too close to it to necessarily see the broader picture. And while your points seem perfectly reasonable in an academic discussion, I don't believe they translate well into the reality of the industry or practical application into the existing or realistically feasible models. "Fairness" is absolutely the last consideration (and a fairly naive one) for an industry as large, complex, and competitive as commercial airlines. Unless, of course, one intends to be in Chapter 11 in their first year of operation.
While I agree that pricing in today's US legacy carriers has gotten to the point of, well, cellular providers, it has been more as a response to customer demand to "de-bundle" the costs. Many service industries have followed that very same concept to present a lower perceived upfront cost to the consumer, wherein the extras chosen by the individual customer are at their own discretion.
Absolute final cost to the flying public today is lower than it has been in any time in the last several decades, with or without the added separate costs. Yet consumers clamor for still cheaper fares, more flights, more services, etc. The bulk of the seats on US domestic flights are operated at a loss. It's the frequent, last-minute travelers (such as myself) that essentially subsidize the casual traveler. One who, in my own lifetime, would've taken that holiday trip to see the family in a station wagon. Instead, they demand immediate, nearly instantaneous transportation, on their schedule, at their convenience, but still balk at paying for what they are getting.
My business is such that I will simply pay what I have to to get to my required destination, I have no option. Ten years ago, I'd pay over $2000 for a direct nonstop PHX-ATL; today I'm surprised if the same ticket is over $400 in the same fare class. Competitive pressures, governmental threats, economic conditions, fuel costs, "consumer activism", and other issues have placed us where we are today. The reason the carriers are for the most part losing money is because of the inflexibility and fickleness of the "flying public." While they seem to be able to cope with wildly varying costs at the pump for their own car, responding to the same changes in an industry that most only deal with once every few years brings out the righteous indignation in them.
If the carriers charged a flat "seat-cost-per-mile-plus-reasonable-margin", they'd be empty. Instead, in order to simply keep the doors open, they've fallen into the current model. This is our bed that we've made, and we have to sleep in it.
Southwest's model works, but one major problem is that they don't go where many regular travelers actually have to be. If one traveled only to their cities (or nearby), great, but when I or hundreds of thousands of other businessor casualtravelers have to go to, say, Butte, what am I supposed to do then? Drive another 400 miles? Some business travelers love them, but they're never more than 20 miles from a Southwest city anyway. Most of us actually have to cover the entire country.
