Assumption hunters at the airport

when hidden assumptions conceal hidden value from the investor

Several decades ago, a colleague and I, both then teaching at the Harvard Business School, got a call from an a corporate innovator. He asked how IBM could create new value for the business traveler.

We went to work. One of our approaches: doing ethnographies at a variety of airports, talking to business people about the pain points of air travel.

The real culprit for many travelers turned out to be luggage. Travelers dreaded hauling it to and through the airport, getting it into and out of overheads, finding and pulling it off carousels, wrestling it in and out of limos and taxis. Luggage made travel vexing, awkward, and hard.

Luggage inflict particular pain during boarding and disembarking. Passengers slow to a crawl, unable to move faster than the slowest passenger. Sluggish movement on and off the plane is one reason flights miss their window. Luggage causes personal misery and airport chaos.

One of the things my colleague and I could not fail to notice was that wealthy people traveled light and very wealthy people traveled empty-handed. These people were luggage-free.

We were sitting in a coffee shop when an obvious question occurred to us. Was there some way of permitting people and their bags to travel separately? Wouldn’t this eliminate a big pain point? Wouldn’t it add value to the flying experience by making commercial planes feel a little more like private planes? Walk on, walk off. Maybe luggage was not the necessary evil it appeared to be.

After all, we thought, there was a precedent for baggage distribution. It was called FedEx, UPS and DHL. This infrastructure was extant, robust, and, with some scaling up, it might well rise to the occasion of moving millions of pieces of luggage around the nation. It was already very good and surprisingly reliable at moving every other kind of parcel. We couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if FedEx gave us proof of concept. Baggage flying solo looked possible. Travelers could surrendered their bags the night before on their doorstep or, on the day of, at the airport. In our scheme, they would not see their bags again until they entered their hotel room. Hello, old friend, how was your trip?

So it seemed to us possible that a FedEx-type system could move the luggage. The other question was whether airports could accommodate the additional planes required to build the luggageless system. Maybe, maybe not. We didn’t have the data to think this through. On the other hand, I learned long ago never to bet against American ingenuity.

The third question was cost. Then, as now, travelers showed NO patience for additional or hidden fees of any kind. So the airlines would have to pay. Then as now, airlines suffer razor-thin margins. It seemed unlikely they would want to.

The conclusion was obvious. If there was going to be a solution, the luggage-free system would to pay for itself. Ok, but how? The obvious candidate: that the luggage-less system would create new efficiencies at the airport that would allow the carriers to run more flights for more revenue.

We didn’t have these numbers either. (The luggage-less flight was not the most important of our recommendations so we didn’t seek them.) But I just asked ChatGPT to run the numbers and by this reckoning, there does appear to be a revenue opportunity. Here are the conclusions. (See Appendix 2 for the full calculations.)

ChatGPT reply:

• Without baggage handling, an airline could add 1 extra flight per aircraft per day.
• If an airline has a fleet of 100 narrow-body aircraft, this would allow for 100 additional flights per day across the fleet.

I asked ChatGPT to make an estimate of what this would mean for a route from NYC to Florida’s Fort Myers (RSW).

ChatGPT reply:

• An airline would generate approximately $8.5 million in profit per week on the New York to RSW route under the no-baggage model.?

It would be wrong to attach too much confidence to this estimate, but it looks possible that luggage-less air travel might be economically feasible.

This raises a still more vexing question:

Why in the dickens has no one undertaken a luggage-less model? Or, as Emily Stewart puts it in her exemplary article for Business Insider: “Given how recurrent the [luggage] problem is, it seems like someone should have fixed it by now.” (See Appendix 1 for the full context of Stewart’s observation.)

This brings me to what was meant to be the heart of this post. (Sorry it took so long to get here!)

Hidden value as a cultural problem: the case for assumption hunting

Hidden value exists in every industry. And it remains hidden not because of a technical problem but because of what we can call a cultural problem.

Culture supplies the infrastructure of meaning. In this case, it encourages us to make an invisible assumption: that air travelers travel with baggage. For most of the history of aviation, there was no realistic alternative. But by 1983, the moment FedEx reached revenue of $10b, a luggageless system was at least thinkable. The infrastructure was there.

The infrastructure was there, but, thanks to culture, the idea was not. People continued to act as if air travelers had to move with their luggage. And that’s because this was not a supposition. It was a presupposition. It wasn’t an idea. It was an assumption. The great architecture of understandings called culture made this clear. Bags and travelers go together.

Again there may be some technical or financial reason why the aviation industry hasn’t “gone luggageless.” But I have done enough consulting for enough companies to know that organizations and industries are often so deeply (and understandably) embedded in a field of assumptions that they can’t escape this field. That could be happening here. The industry is so accustomed to thinking bags and travelers must fly together it’s just very hard imagine a world in which they fly separately.

What is a problem for airline industry is a problem for the corporation. This is sometimes precisely why the corporate hires a consultant. These specialists don’t know the assumptions, or have not committed to them. So they can see what the corporation cannot. More to the point, they can show how hidden assumptions work as barriers and opportunities.

What we were doing for our client might be called “assumption hunting.” That’s what I called it in a paper I wrote for MIT students. (You can find a summary of the paper here: https://cultureby.com/2008/03/assumption-hunt.html. Here’s the full text: https://cultureby.com/2025/02/assumption-hunting-a-new-diligence-for-the-c-suite.html.) Sitting in that coffee shop, we were testing the airline industry for hidden opportunities.

But hidden assumptions are not only a problem for the corporation and the investor. The Hungarian-English scientist Michael Polanyi looked at the way fellow scientists did science. He was surprised to see that they didn’t examine their assumptions in a systematic way. This despite the fact that looking for assumptions is, in the language of Thomas Kuhn, a path out of one paradigm into another. Discovering assumptions are sometimes the way to create a scientific revolution and win a Nobel prize. Polanyi summed things up with a pithy phrase, something like: “They know more than they can say.”

So this is a chronic problem: for airlines, corporations, scientists and investors. Assumptions are hidden. This means value is hidden. And in the case of the airline running planes from NYC to RSW, it turns out to be quite a lot of value.

I asked ChatGPT to run the numbers. (See Appendix 3 for the full rendering.) It replied:

If all American airlines adopted a no-baggage model, the estimated industry-wide increase in weekly profit would be approximately $709 million per week.

This additional profit comes from the ability to operate more flights per day per aircraft, leading to increased revenue while keeping operational cost increases manageable. Over the course of a year, this could mean an industry-wide profit boost of nearly $37 billion—a transformational change for the airline business.

I expect the airline industry conceals a great many assumptions. Assumptions are not sloppy thinking. They are the way we organize and accelerate our decision making. Without them we could not think swiftly. We would have to examine every single assertion for all the things it assumes. And that would take forever. So, we treat some things as if true. We take somethings “as read.” And before long they settle into habit and eventually they disappear from view.

The trick is to figure out which assumptions conceal value and which do not. Not to undertake this work is, in the case of the scientist, a failure of diligence and intellectual responsibility. In the case of the C-suite, it’s a failure of diligence and fiduciary responsibility.?

Investors

Investors are sometimes working with hidden assumptions and value. The C-suite has failed to look for these and therefore can’t report them. In effect, the investor is being forced to assume limitations created by the C-Suite. In a more perfect world, the C-suite would have hired assumption hunters and the investor would be entitled to ask for the findings these hunters had discovered. In a more perfect world, the investor would be entitled to use an earnings call to ask something like, “I was interested to see you see that you continue to double down on product category X. Could you give us a quick snapshot of your assumptions here, please?” Or “I see you have been working to future-proof your organization. Can you tell me a little bit about how you approach the assumption hunting?”

Tom Brakke is a friend of Tailwind Radar. (See his illuminating Investment Ecosystem here.) Tom took the assumption hunting paper as it was written for MIT students and converted it for the investment reader. Here’s what he said. (He does a much better job than I can do, so I am going to quote him at length.)

[Grant’s] focus is on businesses and the assumptions that drive them — where those assumptions come from, how they fail, and how hard they are to kill. They get so ingrained that they are invisible for all practical purposes, but they are powerful beyond imagination.

And those assumptions will eventually collide with an evolving world. Therefore, they can’t be viewed in isolation, but in light of what’s on the horizon. That’s tough (and creative) work — anticipating change is easier said than done.

In order to understand what is being presupposed, McCracken outlines a series of “excavations” that identify lingering management models (of whatever vintage); beliefs held dear by the firm (such as the founder’s vision); the clashing ideals of the polyglot of different professions at a company (think of engineers and marketers in a room); and the culture of the industry in which a company operates.

You need assumption hunters to ferret them out, to identify the decaying and destructive ones for what they are and to recognize when a firm is ill-suited for the environment on the horizon. Who should do it? McCracken says such a role is naturally the province of those trained in the liberal arts. (That sound you just heard was a bunch of clicks from investment types, leaving this posting just as I was about to speak to them.)

But when you think about it, what more could I want in an analyst than to be an assumption hunter? (emphasis added by GM). One that has deep understanding of the operating model, the financial model, and the tenets of the culture that others don’t see but that will determine whether a firm being covered is a “fit” for the future or not?

And wouldn’t you like to have a portfolio manager that has those abilities? A great one usually understands how different kinds of investors interact and how prices move as assumptions flow from one group to another. Falling in love with a company or stock or an asset class is not what an assumption hunter does.

For someone like me who studies investment decision makers, real assumption hunters are hard to find. It’s so easy to go along with how the investment business operates, with how vehicles are being valued, with whatever is producing returns at a given moment, and whatever the powers that be at your organization happen to favor. Assumption hunters are by their very nature disruptive, pointing to beliefs that are shared without question (and starting up with the questioning soon thereafter).

As a result, they are very valuable. If you work in an investment organization (or for an institutional investor that allocates money) and you have an open slot, I’d counsel you to hire an assumption hunter instead of adding just one more of what you already have. I think you’d get better returns.

Perhaps one day someone will put “assumption hunter” on their business card. It will probably happen more quickly in the world of corporate culture that McCracken wrote about than in the investment ecosystem that I write about. In either case, such a person will make people uncomfortable. That’s the whole point.

Summing up

An anthropologist looks at culture. That is our great preoccupation and the object of over 100 years of study, much of it spent in obscure and grueling circumstances. But anthropologists came back with treasure. They came up with a new understanding of culture.?

This idea had been examined by European intellectuals since Herder wrote Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Humanity (Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit) in the late 18th century. The title identifies the achievement and the problem.?

Herder identified culture as a thing in the world, hard to see and therefore all the more important to investigate. But he also broached it as an idea. It was only when anthropologists came marching out of the jungle that we had a clearer notion of how culture actually worked in the world. Now we could see how every community fashions a culture to make its world intelligible, navigable, and interoperable.

A few brave anthropologists have looked at the culture in the world of business. This is a world that sometimes likes to suppose that it is so ruled by rationality that it does have, and does not need, culture. Reason is all that’s required to pursue interest, craft transactions, speak to consumers, create innovations, and capture value. And sometimes this is true. But sometimes the work of business is dramatically mediated by culture. Sometimes it is precisely culture that makes business intelligible, navigable, and interoperable.

As a student of culture in the contemporary world, there are two places where I to try produce value.

The first is the study of culture as a repository of understandings, the supplier of a vast architecture of meanings and rules, that makes up American culture. Ours has always been a ferociously dynamic place. This means our meanings are subject to dispute and change. In some worlds, meaning supplies a still life. In the US, it’s much more like a motion picture.

I believe that culture as “meanings in motion” might be key to the investment process. It is meanings as trends that can decide whether an investment fails or flourishes. In the case of Lululemon, we have detected 15 meanings acting as tailwinds in its success, and one in particular that now appears to acting as a headwind that may bring the firm low.

So that’s the first task at hand for this anthropologist and the little business I have created. It is to map the meanings of American culture, to monitor them as they change, to map them as they create and recreate our world, to create models that can help us understand and predict how these meanings will pour through our world, transforming us as they go. This is when meanings become trends and as trends work for and against brands and investments.

The second task is the one we have looked at in this paper. Some of the meanings contained in culture exist as assumptions. They operate invisibly. We use them reflexively. They are hard to see as assumptions. When we think of air travel, our idea of passenger comes equipped with an invisible assumption about luggage. Our idea of luggage comes invisibly equipped with an assumption about passengers. That’s the key. We want to see passenger and luggage for what they are, not what they imply. That’s the work of assumption hunters and the investors they serve.

References

Brakke, Tom. 2012. “Assumption Hunter.” The Research Puzzle?: A Blog by Tom Brakke, Feb. 2012, https://researchpuzzle.com/blog/2012/02/23/assumption-hunters/.

Kuhn, Thomas S. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Third edition. University Of Chicago Press.

McCracken, Grant. 2011. “Assumption Hunters.” Research Memo: MIT Convergence Culture Consortium, August. www.convergenceculture.org. (This essay has since disappeared from the MIT website. I dug out a version and posted it here: https://cultureby.com/2025/02/assumption-hunting-a-new-diligence-for-the-c-suite.html)

McCracken, Grant. 2016. Dark Value. How to find hidden value in the digital economy. Periph Fluide: https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Value-hidden-digital-economy-ebook/dp/B01F6BBIVW/ref=sr_1_2

McCracken, Grant. 2020. This morning Google kissed culture hard on the month. Medium. https://grant27.medium.com/this-morning-twitter-kissed-culture-hard-on-the-mouth-ccef120181ba

Polanyi, Michael, and Amartya Sen. The Tacit Dimension. Revised edition. University Of Chicago Press, 2009.

Zerubavel, Eviatar. 1991. The Fine Line: Boundaries and Distinctions in Everyday Life. The Free Press. (For more on culture.)

Appendices

Appendix 1: Luggage as a chronic pain point

This passage is what got me started thinking about this issue. It appears in a recent story by Emily Stewart called Battle of the Bags in Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/carry-on-bags-checked-luggage-size-charge-airlines-planes-travel-2025-1

It typically starts with an unenthused agent issuing what seems like a far-too-early warning that overhead bin space is running out, causing a swarm of anxious passengers to crowd the gate in an attempt to ensure their bag travels with them. Some passengers voluntarily hand over their luggage for a gate check, begrudgingly strapping on that dreaded red tag, while others hold out, betting that there's more room on the plane than the staff is letting on. If they're right and they make it past the gate agent, all's well that ends well. For those that play it wrong, well, they're in for a kerfuffle - the last-ditch attempt to squeeze the bag in, the plea with a flight attendant to come up with a fix, and, ultimately, the decision to relent. The flight eventually takes off, often delayed, with everyone slightly more annoyed than they were 30 minutes ago.

The hubbub around luggage is the "single driver of boarding time," said Samuel Engel, a lecturer at Boston University's Questrom School of Business and a senior vice president at ICF, a consulting firm. "If you look at what is the constraint on boarding time, the element that really squeezes it is the overhead bins. It's not people finding their seats."

Given how recurrent this problem is, it seems like someone should have fixed it by now.

Appendix 2: Assumptions underlying the ChatGPT calculation of baggage data.

Assumptions:

• Current Turnaround Time with Baggage: Total: 92 minutes (boarding, deplaning, baggage loading & unloading).
• Turnaround Time Without Baggage:
• Total: 48 minutes (boarding and deplaning only).
• Operating Hours per Day:
• A typical short-haul aircraft (e.g., Boeing 737, Airbus A320) flies for about 14–16 hours per day.
• Average Flight Duration:
• Assume an average short-haul flight takes 90 minutes (1.5 hours), including taxiing, takeoff, and landing.
• Existing Daily Flight Schedule:
• With baggage handling, each flight cycle (flight + turnaround) takes: 90 minutes (flight) + 92 minutes (turnaround) = 182 minutes (~3.03 hours) per cycle.
• In a 16-hour operating day, an aircraft can complete: 16 hours × 60 min/hour ÷ 182 min ≈ 5.27 flights/day (rounded down to 5 flights/day).
• Revised Daily Flight Schedule (No Baggage Handling):
• Each flight cycle would now take: 90 minutes (flight) + 48 minutes (turnaround) = 138 minutes (~2.3 hours) per cycle.
• In a 16-hour operating day, an aircraft can complete: 16 hours × 60 min/hour ÷ 138 min ≈ 6.96 flights/day (rounded down to 6 flights/day).

Conclusion:

• Without baggage handling, an airline could add 1 extra flight per aircraft per day.
• If an airline has a fleet of 100 narrow-body aircraft, this would allow for 100 additional flights per day across the fleet.

I then asked ChatGPT to estimate whats these efficiencies would mean to the carrier running planes from NYC to Southwest Florida International Airport.

It replied the weekly profit would be $8.5 million weekly, and offered this breakdown.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of how ChatGPT arrived at the $8.5 million weekly profit estimate for the New York to Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) route under the assumption that passengers do not check or remove luggage.

Step 1: Define Key Assumptions

Operational Metrics

Flights per day per aircraft: 6 (Under the no-baggage model, each aircraft can complete 6 flights per day instead of 5.)

Number of aircraft assigned to the route: 10 (The airline dedicates 10 narrow-body aircraft to the NY-RSW route.)

Aircraft seating capacity: 180 seats (Typical for a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320.)

Load factor: 85% (The average percentage of seats filled on each flight.)

Financial Assumptions

• Average ticket price: $250 (Estimated based on typical fares for the NY-RSW route.)
• Operating cost per flight: $18,000 (Covers fuel, crew, maintenance, airport fees, and other costs per flight.)

Step 2: Calculate Revenue Per Day

Each flight generates revenue based on seats sold and ticket price:

Passengers per flight=180×0.85=153\text{Passengers per flight} = 180 \times 0.85 = 153Passengers per flight=180×0.85=153Revenue per flight=153×250=38,250\text{Revenue per flight} = 153 \times 250 = 38,250Revenue per flight=153×250=38,250Total daily revenue=flights per day per aircraft×number of aircraft×revenue per flight\text{Total daily revenue} = \text{flights per day per aircraft} \times \text{number of aircraft} \times \text{revenue per flight}Total daily revenue=flights per day per aircraft×number of aircraft×revenue per flight6×10×38,250=2,295,0006 \times 10 \times 38,250 = 2,295,0006×10×38,250=2,295,000

Step 3: Calculate Costs Per Day

Each flight incurs an estimated operating cost of $18,000:

Total daily cost=flights per day per aircraft×number of aircraft×cost per flight\text{Total daily cost} = \text{flights per day per aircraft} \times \text{number of aircraft} \times \text{cost per flight}Total daily cost=flights per day per aircraft×number of aircraft×cost per flight6×10×18,000=1,080,0006 \times 10 \times 18,000 = 1,080,0006×10×18,000=1,080,000

Step 4: Calculate Daily Profit

Daily Profit=Daily Revenue?Daily Cost\text{Daily Profit} = \text{Daily Revenue} - \text{Daily Cost}Daily Profit=Daily Revenue?Daily Cost2,295,000?1,080,000=1,215,0002,295,000 - 1,080,000 = 1,215,0002,295,000?1,080,000=1,215,000

Step 5: Calculate Weekly Profit

Weekly Profit=Daily Profit×7\text{Weekly Profit} = \text{Daily Profit} \times 7Weekly Profit=Daily Profit×71,215,000×7=8,505,0001,215,000 \times 7 = 8,505,0001,215,000×7=8,505,000

Final Estimate: The airline would generate approximately $8.5 million in profit per week on the New York to RSW route under the no-baggage model.

My colleague and I didn’t run these numbers but when I look at them now, they are even higher than I expected them to be. My big take away: luggage is expensive.

Now the question, why in God’s name as someone not done this. The financial savings appear to be there. (It is of course trouble that there is something wrong with these numbers.)

The creature comfort savings are equally impressive. People traveling without luggage would have a kind of “cathedral” space about their heads when luggage compartment were removed. And the journey on to the plane and off again would be a little like finding your pew at a church. Pretty straight forward and not the exercise in World Wide Wresting, sometimes descending into Mixed Martial Arts, that we are accustomed to.

I know some of the hard hearted among you will say, “actually, I don’t care how comfortable flights are. Let’s just pack em, stack em and rack em, and take their money.

But this is more than hard hearted. What it misses that the first carrier to make flights luggage-less creates enormous value for the consumer and this converts into enormous value for the brand. The first carrier to go luggageless will make itself a god in the world of air travel, the Apple amongst laptops, the Four Seasons amongst hotels, the brand that has addressed one of the great causes of air travel pain.

That nows brings us to the investing question

Appendix 3: ChatGPT calculates savings for an airline industry that flys passengers and bags separately.

I asked ChatGPT:

what if all american airlines decides to fly passengers and bags separately, what would that mean to the industry as a whole?

ChatGPT replied:

If all American airlines adopted a passenger-only flight model and transported baggage separately, it would fundamentally transform the airline industry. Here’s a strategic breakdown of what this shift would mean:

1. Operational Efficiency Gains

• Faster Turnarounds → Airlines could increase daily flights per aircraft, improving aircraft utilization.
• More Frequent Flights → Increased efficiency could enable higher route density on popular routes.
• Lower Ground Handling Costs → No need for baggage sorting, transport, and loading/unloading at the gate.
• Fewer Delays → A major source of delays (mishandled baggage, congestion) would be eliminated.
• Smaller Airport Footprint Needed → Less reliance on large baggage infrastructure (conveyor belts, baggage claims).

Industry Impact:

• Airlines could increase total daily flights per plane by ~20%.
• Potentially reduce labor costs by eliminating or repurposing baggage handling teams.

2. Creation of a Separate Baggage Transportation Industry

• New Dedicated Luggage Carriers → Third-party logistics companies (FedEx, UPS, new startups) could specialize in same-day or next-day baggage transport.
• Freight Revenue for Airlines → Airlines could repurpose existing aircraft for high-speed cargo/baggage transport.
• Door-to-Door Baggage Service → Luxury options emerge where bags are picked up from home and delivered to the traveler’s hotel or final destination.

Industry Impact:

• Potential shift in baggage logistics from airlines to express delivery services.
• Airlines might partner with FedEx, UPS, or Amazon for baggage handling.

3. Passenger Experience Changes

• Less Hassle at the Airport → No need to wait in baggage check lines or at baggage claims.
• More Carry-On Bags → Airlines might expand overhead bin storage or offer larger personal item allowances.
• Loyalty Programs Evolve → Airlines might shift to new perks like guaranteed priority carry-on storage.

Industry Impact:

• Business travelers and frequent flyers might love it (faster airport experience).
• Casual travelers could struggle with the added hassle of separate luggage shipments.

4. New Revenue Models for Airlines

• Premium Pricing for “Luggage-Free” Experience → Airlines could charge a premium for ultra-fast, streamlined flights.
• Subscription Baggage Services → Airlines or third-party companies might offer memberships for priority baggage shipping.
• Reconfiguration of Aircraft → Planes could be redesigned with fewer overhead bins and more seats, increasing revenue potential.

Industry Impact:

• Potential increase in profit margins for airlines.
• More seat density could lower ticket prices in competitive markets.

5. Economic & Competitive Effects

• Low-Cost Airlines Could Benefit Most → Ultra-low-cost carriers (Spirit, Frontier, Southwest) could offer even cheaper tickets.
• Legacy Airlines Might Struggle → Airlines like Delta, American, and United rely on premium class passengers who expect baggage perks.
• Potential for Government Regulation → Consumer protection laws may require airlines to offer a standard baggage option.

Industry Impact

• New entrants (startups) might emerge to handle baggage transport.
• Regulators might require compensation for delayed luggage delivery.

6. Potential Downsides & Risks

• Baggage Delays & Lost Luggage Issues If luggage is transported separately, delays could strain customer satisfaction. Travelers on multi-city trips might struggle with luggage logistics.
• Security & Liability Issues TSA would need new procedures for screening baggage shipments. Passengers may worry about theft or damage in a separate luggage transit system.
• Infrastructure Costs Airlines may need to invest in new logistics hubs for seamless luggage transport.

Bottom Line: Industry-Wide Impact

1. More Profitable & Efficient Airlines → Airlines could increase flight frequency and revenue.
2. New Baggage Transportation Industry Emerges → Likely driven by FedEx, UPS, Amazon, or new startups.
3. Diverging Passenger Experience → Business travelers benefit, leisure travelers face logistical challenges.
4. Regulatory & Security Adjustments Needed → Potential new FAA and TSA policies.
5. Competitive Shake-Up → Low-cost airlines might thrive, while full-service carriers must adjust.

If executed well, this could revolutionize the industry by making flying more efficient, but it also introduces significant logistical and customer experience challenges.

ChatGPT asked: Would you like an estimation of how this could impact overall industry revenue or costs?

I replied:

yes, please

ChatGPT said:

If all American airlines adopted a no-baggage model, the estimated industry-wide increase in weekly profit would be approximately $709 million per week.

This additional profit comes from the ability to operate more flights per day per aircraft, leading to increased revenue while keeping operational cost increases manageable. Over the course of a year, this could mean an industry-wide profit boost of nearly $37 billion—a transformational change for the airline business.