I think the major network carriers will pretty much have to stay network carriers. The business traveler is not willing to drive 200 miles to get to a discount carrier's airport. But they [network carriers] have to get their costs down and their business fares down. And if they don't, there won't be as many network carriers.

People have known about the challenge of the low-cost carrier for at least a decade. The major airlines did not have an answer. Instead they went about raising fares on the routes where the low-cost competition didn't exist. That was a game that would have caught up with them sooner or later, with or without 9/11.

Jim Craun

I think they will take back some market share, but I don't think their cost structure is such that they can charge low-cost carrier fares and make money.

Jim Craun