Itunes Essay

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United Airlines The WSJ recently presented data suggesting that United Airlines was not covering its costs on flights from San Francisco to Washington D.C. The article quoted analysis saying that United should discontinue this service. The costs per flight (presented in the article) included the costs of fuel, pilots, flight attendants, food, etc. used on the flight. They also included a share of the costs associated with running the hubs at two airports, such as ticket agents, building charges, baggage handlers, gate charges, etc. Suppose that the revenue collected on the typical United flight from San Francisco to Washington does not cover these costs. Does this fact imply that United should discontinue these flights? Explain. Based on the book when there are competitive markets such as airlines, a company certainly needs to look at costs and revenue very closely.(Brickley, Smith, & Zimmerman, 2009, p. 180) In this case I believe that the flights from San Francisco t Washington DC should be discontinued. Even though United Airlines is a large company and profitable if they continue these flights in the long run they will lose money. The other option that they would have would be to increase the fares to cover those costs, but since the airline industry is a competitive market people are more likely to go with a lower cost airline. The first thing the airline must do is look at the firm supply. If they are to continue the flights from those two hubs then they must determine if at some point in the long run the firm must be profitable or should exit the market. (Brickley et al., 2009, p. 181) Since I would assume that the costs of that route would be quite high it would appear that it would be extremely difficult for them to make a profit especially since there are lower cost airlines that customers could do business with. A competitive firm should produce

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