Are airlines destined to go the way of the railroads?

— -- Despite continued capacity cuts and lower fuel prices, most major airlines posted another round of steep losses in the first quarter as companies everywhere trim travel in a dismal economic environment. With fewer flight options, a slew of new ancillary fees, the continuing hassles of post-9/11 air travel and now a looming global health crisis, more companies and business travelers are choosing teleconferences, Webinars and other virtual meeting venues in lieu of the old-fashioned business trip.

With the airline business eroding, it might be a good time for airlines to ask themselves, "What business are we in?" I suspect every airline CEO would probably say they are in the business of flying passengers from one place to another, but they may be off the mark. The purpose of just about every business trip is to facilitate some kind of meeting. Whether it is a sales person calling on a prospect, a job applicant interviewing with a potential employer or conventioneers wandering the exhibit hall, the objective is always the same: Get people together.

In each case, it's the meeting, not the air travel, that's the true purpose of the trip. When air travel becomes too costly, inconvenient or dangerous, business travelers find ways to make meetings happen without flying. Yet airlines fail to comprehend their supporting role, and the fact that they could cease to exist if business travelers stopped holding meetings. Therefore, airlines are not in the flying business; they are in the meetings business, at least with respect to their most important clientele.

The current airline struggle for survival is reminiscent of the death of the passenger railroads in post-WWII America. Once upon a time, hundreds of railroads crisscrossed the country and carried everyone wherever they needed to go. When air travel became safe, reliable and affordable, and the nation constructed a network of interstate super highways, the passenger railroad industry missed a vital and obvious business signal that major change had arrived.