I'm not sure that the point hasn't been reached where cutting a service will cut revenue enough that it's self-defeating.
From that point of view, they'll either need to look at increasing revenues or cutting costs in other areas.
For revenue, there really are a few areas that you would think of as easy wins - selling newspapers on InterCity trains, selling hotel rooms on the website (all this needs is a link and an affiliate code) or extending that to rail/hotel packages. Yield management is more challenging, especially with the number of free passes around.
Costs? Well, do they have any form of continuous improvement system? That tends to be an all round good idea. Staff think they get listened to and are more accepting of change. The company gets to see reduced cost.
|