Can the legacy airlines win back customers?

Falling oil prices will no doubt provide some breathing room for America’s airlines, but bigger questions still loom for the big legacy carriers like Continental , American , and United . In recent years, competition and costs -- both from fuel and outside fuel -- have caused most of the US’s major carriers to cut back on many of the perks that made flying more comfortable and enjoyable. The effect has been that flying on Delta is mostly indistinguishable from flying on Continental. My wife and I just returned from a trip to the Caribbean and our experience on American only underscores this point. The planes were old and shabby with fixtures that made me feel like I was flying in a small town diner, the employees were uninspired at best, and if we wanted a bite to eat on the four-hour cross-country flight, choices were limited and we had to break out our wallets. In fact, the only way I really knew that we were flying American was the fact that at the ...