United Airlines to require minimum stays from Oct. - Yahoo! News Weird... I thought about it for awhile and I'm not sure how this helps them combat high oil prices/cut their costs. Am I just missing something obvious? I and a couple of my coworkers sometimes have to go on business trip where we go and come back the same day (on Alaska Airlines). If they did this to us, the company would have to fork over $ for a hotel and we'd be at a remote office needlessly for a few days. I don't see how this changes the equation much for airlines other than possibly reducing the # of customers they get. Maybe they want that so that they can further reduce capacity and get rid of planes and layoff more people?
Don't you think this is a good money making strategy? This is a smart move to force you bring more luggages. If you check in your luggage, you will need to pay the luggage fee.
The airline is doing this in an attempt to gain more revenue by differentiating between the business traveler and the leisure traveler. As the article stated, this was done in past years but was largely abandoned when low cost carriers such as Frontier, JetBlue, etc., eliminated such requirements for the cheapest fares. Now with all the airlines largely in rough shape, I think they're hoping that other airlines will match this "revenue enhancer." If they don't, it will simply be withdrawn. And if Alaska does match what United is attempting to do, it doesn't mean you won't be able to come right back- your company will just pay more for that round trip ticket than they are now. In order to get the cheapest fare between some city pairs, the business traveler will find themselves paying more unless the trip meets those minimum stay requirements.
