Of course they are colluding. US would never risk this if they didn't think there would be few, if any, options for us. It's interesting. In today's world, marketing is all about indentifying the customer who spends the most. But not all data is reliable, nor does it always prove to be accurate. I watched AA buy TWA, which had been on life support with cheap fares for years. Once they imposed the AA fare structure, it dropped dead. Today, when you search Orbitz, and others, you find lots of cheap fares (many last minute) on AA, and they almost always route via St. Louis. USAirways seems to believe it has a very strong core of full fare customers, although I rarely see many standby upgrades not being gotten at the gate, which suggests it has a higher than average mix of low to high fare pax. I have a Centurion Card, which means I never had to even use them to be Gold, which is plenty good status on this airline for what I want.
Presumably, they'll keep that relationship in place, so why should I really care? Nevertheless, it saddens me, because it is so mindless. They could have accomplished the same thing with stricter inventory controls. They are the ones who flooded the marketplace with unearned status, US20's, 0007's, yet, at the end of the day, they launch this initiative like Pearl Harbor, as though it were some kind of retribution. They will never fix this company, and as long as they can use taxpayer loan guarantees, they will just continue to gut the businesses of those more solvent carriers who have to pay their own way, by existing when the law of natural selection has demonstrated they can't. But it is surely collusive, and others will follow. My guess is they will attract some politically motivated unwanted attention, and may even retract some of this, but the issue is clear. These people are unwilling to confront their business problems, and are apparently rationalizing these in the form of blaming the customer. Kind of like coming home, and kicking the dog. Instead of pricing the product properly, they are trying to force revenue, all this in the midst of a recession, and in the wake of last September's impact on traveler convenience. Just the way they did it smells. Need I say more.