American Airlines may also enter low-cost market
American Airlines CEO revealed that American is watching United and Delta closely in evaluating whether to start its own low-cost airline to take back some of the leisure travelers it is losing to airlines like Southwest and Jet Blue et al according to this New York Times story (registration required). Of course, such efforts have been totally unsuccessful previously since it requires a totally entrepreneurial organization to make a low-cost airline succeed and that's hard to do within an established company.
Gerard J. Arpey, the chief executive, said during a breakfast meeting with industry analysts in Manhattan that executives at American were monitoring the efforts by United Airlines and Delta Air Lines to emulate the success of Southwest Airlines. Last April, Delta started Song and is primarily using it to try to capture market share from JetBlue Airways on routes from the Northeast to Florida. United, a unit of the UAL Corporation, said it planned to start its own low-cost carrier - called Starfish for now - next year and would run it from some of its hubs.