Beauty or commodity?

Every so often we come to hear about bringing back the beauty of flying, and about making air travel a commodity (specially in Asia). But is doing both of this at the same time really possible?

To bring back the so-called beauty of flying, we have to go back to the good old days of flying (where a barrel of oil cost less than a dollar). Very spacious seats, non-packed seat layouts, galleys and all the food you could consume. To bring back this ‘beauty’ again, an airline will definitely have to raise its prices. And will they be able to retain the demand by doing so?

To make air travel a commodity, an airline will have to offset as much costs as possible and offer super discounted fares. And it goes without saying that to achieve it, they will have to remove as much frills as possible. And that in return takes the ‘beauty’ of flying away.

Can both of these concepts coexist?

Definitely not at the same airline. And this is where the interesting new trend of full fare carriers and LCC cooperation comes into play. It is helping both breeds to survive and for both the beauty and the commodity to coexist. Even better for a full service carrier is to have their own LCC subsidiary (the mileage of the effectiveness may vary by the airline). I think that we are seeing the true borders of FSC and LCC defined.