The economics of Shuttle

Extract

What is Shuttle? In a word, it is a system for saying ‘yes’ to all passenger demand. It is the antithesis of the traditional airline product (invented, strangely, by a nautical man called Noah in Old Testament times) whereby demand is deliberately constrained to fit the capacity which the carrier wishes to offer. In the case of Shuttle, the level of production is dictated by market size on the day. It is the customer, not the airline, who calls up the back-up aircraft. Demand is not inhibited — so much so that the Eastern Air Shuttle in the United States is used as ‘the barometer of national prosperity’, according to Aviation Week magazine (15th October 1979 issue). As the word ‘shuttle’ is loosely used in a variety of countries and contexts — from weaving implements to Space Shuttles — I must give the product exact definition. The British Airways version is the same as that operated by Eastern Airlines in the United States since 1961.