While there have been a few attempts at competing on other metrics (there were several attempts to start business-class only airlines in the late 90s and early 2000s)
There are still business-catered offerings, they just tend to be a division of a parent (legacy) carrier. US Airways and Delta's "shuttle" offerings between major business destinations on the east coast stand out as an example.
A couple of the large airlines do still have all-business-class flights, too (BA's oddball little transatlantic A318, to take an example; Singapore's "longest flight in the world", which is about to be discontinued, is another one, using specially configured A340s). It's just that there doesn't seem to be enough demand to sustain an entire airline dedicated to the idea.
> It's just that there doesn't seem to be enough demand to sustain an entire airline dedicated to the idea.
Yeah, this is kind of what I meant. The only people capable of doing this are the majors (and then only on a small handful of mostly-Transatlantic routes). Every attempt so far at building a whole airline around the idea of not competing on price has met with failure.
And, as a sidenote, I really want to take that BA JFK-LCY flight sometime, if for no other reason than it uses the old Concorde flight numbers.
Interesting thought, could a newcomer have operated the LCY-JFK service with the same level of success? Or does it need BA's brand behind it to even get off the ground.
P.S. Happy to see fellow aviation geeks here on HN
It's not just the BA brand though for business flights; it's the "enterprise deals" with the companies that are paying for the seat, the businessperson's preference for earning points they can redeem for a nice holiday, and the onward network for connections.
I'm not sure in the case of LCY<->JFK the connection network is really a factor, but I think the other two things sunk MaxJet, Eos and Silverjet. (It probably didn't help that they all launched around the same time as well!)
That flight really is all about O&D between two huge financial centers. But on the off chance someone actually wants to connect on this side of the pond, I guess they use the fact that JFK is an AA hub (which is in oneworld along with BA, as well as in the immunized TATL joint venture with them).
I did that a couple of times back in the day. The plane would take off with just enough fuel to get to Ireland, where you would do US immigration while it refuelled, then on to New York, and straight off the plane without any queuing. I think the airline was EOS or Silverjet or something.
BA still do that flight (under their cityjet brand). The real reason why they stop off in Dublin is because the runway at LCY is too short to take off with the weight of a full fuel tank.
There are still business-catered offerings, they just tend to be a division of a parent (legacy) carrier. US Airways and Delta's "shuttle" offerings between major business destinations on the east coast stand out as an example.
A couple of the large airlines do still have all-business-class flights, too (BA's oddball little transatlantic A318, to take an example; Singapore's "longest flight in the world", which is about to be discontinued, is another one, using specially configured A340s). It's just that there doesn't seem to be enough demand to sustain an entire airline dedicated to the idea.