Insightful. And those folks are losing miles every year across all of the major airline's ff programs, which expire after 18 months of non-use. I should know; before FT wisened me up, I lost 12,000 miles to US for not paying attention to their sneaky expiration date.

I would rather pay money for sbm12's postings than subscribe to get the article we are discussing.

Everybody has an opinion here. This is mine: One US major has to go, but I don't expect it to happen soon. It need not be an abrupt shutdown; a major might simply decide to stop operating in an orderly way and sell off everything of value (including the ff program) in a managed Chapter 11, thus shortchanging only the owners of the debt and the labor agreements. Something like GM's situation, but without a government bailout and any pretense of still operating.

I'm talking about "industrial policy": The government would say that there are too many players for a profitably healthy domestic airline industry. This is why "too big to fail" will not help. I would hope nobody in government is crazy enough to entertain the idea of owning or operating an airline.