AMR's total revenue this year will be about $4 billion less than last year and WN's total revenue will be down by about $700 - $800 million.

As has been shown by dozens of news articles over the past year, first class and business class revenue on international flights has collapsed, contributing to AA's massive revenue decline. WN has picked up none of that market. Nevertheless, WN's yield is down about 12% for the first three quarters of 2009 and AMR's yield is down about 16%.

Both airlines reduced capacity year over year; WN's reduction in ASMs in the first three quarters is about 6% while AA's ASM reduction is about 10%. Of course, AA grounded 34 widebodies in the past year, along with some MD-80s.

WN's 2009 total revenue will be about 80% more than in 2000, when it earned a pre-tax profit of more than $1 billion. So far this year, WN is showing a pre-tax net loss of $20 million. AMR's 2009 total revenue will be approximately the same as it was in 2000, despite buying a medium sized airline (TWA) in 2001. In 2000, AMR earned $1.3 billion in pre-tax net income. AMR's 2009 net loss will likely be a billion dollars or more.

Against this backdrop, WN has claimed that it has picked up about $800 million of market share and that credit for that pickup goes to the legacy bag fees. I doubt I'm the only person who's skeptical. The revenue picture of the entire industry has fallen into the toilet since 1st and 2d bag fees were imposed and we're being asked to believe that WN has picked up nearly a billion dollars of business because of the bag fees?

A better measure will be the relative recovery of WN and AA once the economy turns around and air travel picks up. If WN's revenue growth outpaces AA's (and all other bag-fee-imposing legacy airlines), it will then be easier to see the connection between bag fees changing fortunes.

For the past decade, WN has been growing like gangbusters while the legacies have been shrinking. For all but perhaps 18 months of that decade, WN grew even without legacy bag fees. And now that we're mired in a recession, legacy bag fees have caused low-yield no-status customers to suddenly flee to WN? Gary Kelly can do better than that.