Originally Posted by
GUWonder
The business case: because Air Canada/Aeroplan can.
AC/Aeroplan gets away with things like this because the customers in the market will still do business with an AC/Aeroplan better described as a monopoly player than just an ordinary player in a highly-competitive, highly-fragmented industry under a laissez-faire regime structure.
Not quite. the business model has changed drastically over time as AE and AC are now completely untied at the Corporate ownership level. They still have a marketing agreement and a pricing structure for the exchange of miles for tickets. But it is now clearly a supplier/customer relationship. In fact I bleieve AE will be able to offer more and better travel products as they expand their horizons beyond the AC relationship. Their acquisition of the loyalty group in the UK is a start.