I hear all the time that food on an airplane doesn’t matter. You’re not up in the air long enough. You won’t get a great meal like you can on the ground anyway, and “nobody decides who to fly because of the food.” That isn’t true – differentiated products win.

When US Airways took over American Airlines, the smaller carrier – whose stock ticket symbol was “LCC” for low cost carrier – didn’t serve very much food. In fact, to put expectations for the combined carrier in perspective I pointed out to the New York Times at the time that US Airways did not serve very much food. “US Airways frequent flyers are hungry” I said. It took a 3 hour 30 minute flight before they’d serve a meal.

So when ex-US Airways management synced up meal offerings at the two airlines a decade ago, the number one passenger complaint in first class was the food. Crew were embarrassed by what they were serving. And all the employee feedback at internal company meetings was about meal service. Then-CEO Doug Parker said at the time ‘I never knew anybody cared that much about food.’

United Airlines is now investing significantly in its wine program. They already have the best business class bedding among U.S. airlines. Delta, too, is upping its champagne and investing more in bedding.

It’s not that Delta and United are dumb. In fact, they’re achieving high margins while airlines that haven’t been investing as much in their product are underperforming financially.

One reader shares with me his decision to book with Delta and Air France instead of American – when he used to be willing to spend more to fly American. This is a real choice, and real revenue loss, that’s being repeated over and over.

I just booked a business class flight on DL/AF DFW to Warsaw instead of on AA. It was $2k cheaper, but…I would never have done this in years past (especially when spending [my employer’s] money).

But status on AA just isn’t worth chasing any longer. And AF business class so so much better—if only because of the wine and Armagnac.

Air France Airbus A350 Business Class

Air France has good seats, good food, and respectable wine. They’ve added mattress pads in business class on transatlantic flights. American is adding mattress pads, but only on longer flights to Asia Pacific and the Mideast.

American AAdvantage was American’s moat, and this reader used to spend more to fly American because of it. Doing so helped them earn their status. But status is no longer as valuable!

• American, like United and Delta, would rather monetize unsold first class seats to once a year coach flyers for as little as $40 rather than making those seats available as upgrades for customers spending tens of thousands of dollars a year.

• So it’s not surprising the product is not worth much more than $40!

American Airlines serves $8 wines in international first class. They dropped their wine expert, and were even just taking whatever the wholesaler sent them. On my flights out of Sydney they haven’t even had Australian wines. They stopped trying.

This was reflected in a significant net promoter score deficit to Delta and United. The good news is that nps recovers for those customers experiencing American’s best product.

Delta says they have a moat and a long enough head start that United can’t catch up. United CEO Scott Kirby said that the difference between his airline and “one other airline” is structural, and other airlines (i.e. American) can’t catch up. But that is not true. United was where American is right now a decade ago. The problem is that it takes time, commitment, and money. American is making some positive moves, but hasn’t yet demonstrated the commitment or money.

Ultimately, an airline can win on product. And it can win on loyalty alone – Northwest used to compensate top elites with bonus miles whenever they weren’t upgraded on domestic flights, making up for their inferior product with an ‘upgrade guarantee’. The best combination does both!

But ‘schedule and price’ alone is not a winning combination for a high cost airline in what’s ultimately a competitive marketplace. And reliability – while crucial – is mere tablestakes.