US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - fortune mag article on US and others airlines; "will it fly"

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,443062,00.html

part of:

Bringing Down Costs
American, United, and US Airways are cutting costs, but the budget carriers (B) are still much leaner.
Carrier Cost per available seat mile, 2002

US Airways 11.0¢
United 10.4¢
American 9.2¢
Delta 8.4¢
Northwest 8.2¢
Continental 7.9¢
America West (B) 6.7¢
Southwest (B) 6.3¢
JetBlue (B) 5.3¢

It's the big guys' worst nightmare. In the past, if an upstart came in, they would just pile service on top of them, cut fares, and eat losses long enough to run them out...all the while, conveniently suggesting via ads that they had new equipment (which, by extension, meant the upstarts did not). The discount guys read their book, came back with new planes, and have a level playing field thanks to cutbacks in scheduling. Delta is a good example. They announced big reductions in service today. Meantime, AirTran just keeps putting more new 717's into their Atlanta hub. Same problem for US. They've really cut flights to Florida (and other places), with JetBlue now running as many as 5 to 6 a day to and from the Northeast into some markets in the Sunshine State. In the old days, they might run 2 or 3, but would never have dared to go to these levels.