I recognize that my generally negative attitude towards most all Big-bizness (those well on their targeted trajectory of achieving Monopoly de facto status) directs my choice of more snidely-type adjectives.
Alas, I couldn't unravel the present mess of US Airlines (before, during and after 9/11) even if elected dictator. To me the situation looks exactly like the paper submitted to a professor, who remarked - Your work is so screwed up it isn't even wrong..
Beyond the actual overall mess of the industry, the environmental cost of jillions of these jumbos filling the air (and people breathing the same recycled air w/bugs Inside these tubes with seats) - somehow needs to be reconciled with the habits we have formed re instant travel.
No one I know if is smart enough to describe "how it Ought to be", nor do people (including me) like to be told Which self-indulgences we may.. choose. But in an overall sense, I believe we (all) 'ought' to consider choosing some means of curtailing lots of these flights.
We can get there via the Euro lead: fast, clean trains; meals at leisure - and not stuffed into a toothpaste tube and squirted onto a tray. Yeah - Euro is Not the land area of US, so let's not be simplistic here. Still, esp. in the very heavily laden corridors, I think we are (per usual) way past the time when we needed to plan longer than that @#%^&% bizness "next quarter" - that mindset which is responsible for so much that is crap in the USA.
Ashton Urban Planner
but only as Dictator, Mr. Bunny, Nicer than Most Persons