3 ms·
In addition to the sketchy mathematical foundation, there's another reason to not draw too many conclusions from this observation: your company, product, and cu
by mrshoe 13y ago
In addition to the sketchy mathematical foundation, there's another reason to not draw too many conclusions from this observation: your company, product, and customers are probably quite unlike Southwest Airlines. For starters, airline customers care almost exclusively about price.
Joel Spolsky was wise to warn against doing what this article suggests (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/11.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/11.html):
In one of Gerald Weinberg's books, probably The Secrets of Consulting,
there's the apocryphal story of the giant multinational hamburger chain
where some bright MBA figured out that eliminating just three sesame
seeds from a sesame-seed bun would be completely unnoticeable by anyone
yet would save the company $126,000 per year. So they do it, and time
passes, and another bushy-tailed MBA comes along, and does another study,
and concludes that removing another five sesame seeds wouldn't hurt
either, and would save even more money, and so on and so forth, every
year or two, the new management trainee looking for ways to save money
proposes removing a sesame seed or two, until eventually, they're
shipping hamburger buns with exactly three sesame seeds artfully arranged
in a triangle, and nobody buys their hamburgers any more.
- Nursie 13y ago>> For starters, airline customers care almost exclusively about price. I wish that wasn't the case. I'd gladly pay an extra £20 on an international flight for decent food, and I regularly do pay an extra £50 or so for more room or an exit row seat. I know there's a market of people like me, for whom business class is way to expensive just to make a few hours a bit more pleasant, but who aren't just counting every penny. The airlines seem to have started to cater for us with things like Delta's "Comfort Economy", but it needs to go further.
- jessriedel 13y agoPresumably it will go exactly as far as the market will bear. (I'll keep my $100, please...)
- mseebach 13y agoYou're the "almost" in "almost exclusively". I am too. When I was younger, I had more time than money, I travelled many a long hour in "cattle class", but I have some pretty awesome experiences to show for it. These days, I've got less time, but much more money, so I'll spend it for more comfort - but I'd be a damn hypocrite if I wanted airlines to do any less than their best to make sure young people of today can get the same experiences.
- Nursie 13y agoTrue, true, necessary travel is necessary and unnecessary travel is worthwhile and a broadening experience and definitely to be recommended. Pricing it out of mass market reach would be a bad thing. I guess to get food that isn't just crap you need to pick your airline. Singapore aren't too awful, and Delta's chicken salad the other week on my ATL->LHR flight was perfectly OK, but that seems the exception rather than the rule. I listened to a Radio 4 documentary on airline food the other week which was quite interesting. It revealed, amongst other things, that on many airlines there is a budget of roughly £1 ($1.50) per passenger per meal, which goes some way to explaining the hopelessly poor quality. And no, having travelled business class on a number of occasions, that old line "your taste buds are affected by the pressure" has never worked on me...
- mseebach 13y agoTo get food that isn't crap, you need to eat a good meal at the airport, for longer flights bring a sandwich. For all their faults, I love London airports for the ubiquity of Pret shops.
- Nursie 13y agoHehe. If it's a morning flight I like to start the day with a plate of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, and a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc. For this they charge an arm and a leg but it makes the whole thing just that bit nicer...
- edent 13y agoThe trick for decent food on airlines is to specify a meal preference. I'm usually say I'm "Asian Vegetarian". On most flights I get a reasonable curry, or something a bit more interesting than the usual slop they hand out. As a bonus, special meals are usually served first and in some cases are specially prepared. As it happens, I am a vegetarian, so I don't "miss" the meat - YMMV.
- larsberg 13y ago> For starters, airline customers care almost exclusively about price I fly exclusively on United because they have Economy Plus, which lets me buy an additional 3-5" of legroom at a reasonable additional price. Sure, it's more than Southwest or whatever else, but I'm more than happy to give them my dollars for the extra space.
- coldcode 13y agoAt 6'5" I have to look for room even if I have to pay extra.