I agree with Sig. And that disruptor is Elon Musk. Commercial air travel will not even exist in the future in my opinion. I think it's still far off but we are heading there. And yes, air travel is very elastic and we have seen that every time airfares tick up. In fact, even commercial air travel is elastic. We saw that after the 2008 credit crisis. Airlines have so many uncertainties to deal with in their model: oil costs, labor costs, unions, pensions, regulations, taxes, weather, technology, terrorism, GDP growth, population growth, and even immigration. This is not what you want to see when your demand curve is highly elastic.
Totally disagree. Other than the weather, all that stuff is adequately incorporated into the model now. And they've got the weather factor incorporated well enough to minimize disruptions system-wide as best they can.
Then why do they keep blaming weather everytime they have a bad earnings report? LOL. You can't control weather.