are nothing other than opinions.
I listen continually, and filter that which is backed by facts.
BTW, Harvard B-school grads brought us the implosion of the markets in '00, and the insanity of the 90s. I can't tell you how many of those guys paraded through my shop during those years and were all gung-ho to come in and give me a "makeover" to be "more successful."
Of course reality set in somewhere around April/May of '00, and heh, guess what? All those B-school types were shown to be emporers without clothes, and the streets are littered with the smoking remains of their "formulas."
P.E. never changed much of anything in their service levels or customer focus from the first time I set foot on their planes until the last. They were run out of business by an economic change in their fuel costs, coupled with an intense cross-subsidization war they could not fight (since they had no means to DO cross-subsidization) effectively.
I did quite a bit of study on the PE failure for my own education, since I really liked their service and it was damn competitive.
They ultimately failed due to being run out of town on a rail by cross-subsidization, fuel cost increases, and an economic recession that buried them, along with a failure to use their strengths through a marketing campaign to attack their rival's ability to fund their cross-subsidization.
Their general model - run the airline like an intercity bus service - was a good one. But their strength was also their downfall, in that the inability to shift money around and cross-subsidize routes and seats (since all were sold at the same price) made it easy for other airlines to cannibalize their sales. Unfortunately PE failed to eat the other guy's lunch in reverse - they could have chewed United, Delta and American and spat their bloody remains back out had they gone after the "last minute" business air traveller, who was (and still is) paying 10x their fares.
Without those revenues, the "big guys" could have never attacked them as they did; offering "guaranteed seats" at a 50% premium would have changed the world for them, and up until 9/11 at least, they probably would still be with us.
Unfortunately, they did not and lacked the depth to be able to take the other guys on in any other effective way. Thus, they went "poof."
Of course today PE would be a total non-starter, as their complete lack of screening or identification prior to boarding (other than maknig it through the causeway metal detectors!) would be 100% unacceptable in today's post-9/11 world. But that was a big part of their success story - a cash-fare airline that ran like a city bus - get on, sit down, pay your fare once the door is closed and you're a captive audience and off 'ya go. Nobody knows who is on the manifest, nobody knows who you are. You're just a guy with a $100 bill in his wallet who wants to get from place "A" to "B".
Virtually all of their service hubbed at Newark though, and it was a HORRIBLE terminal at the time. Easily the worst of any I've ever been in, and I've been in a lot of 'em.
Back to scuba stuff...
Consider LP's annual sales, then consider any one of the major manfuacturers. Remove LP's contribution to their production. Most of the brands they carry would see an immediate 20% reduction in sales.
Many - perhaps most - of those manufacturers would never survive that reduction.