I see their "arrogance" in not offering their frequent fliers more perks and amenities.
You mean like an F cabin you can upgrade into gratis as an elite? Well, my point's that WN's done fine for 40 years without one.
They do offer a number of perks to elites- A-List, Companion Pass. No, you can't turn a bunch of WN flights into TATL flights in F, and you can't sit in an F cabin on one of their 737s. Those are the two major benefits for elites they don't have. It doesn't seem to have stopped them from doing well, though, at the expense of other airlines where you CAN do this.
Look, I don't doubt that this sucks for FL fans. I'd be upset (and pretty much swearing "all my business goes to WN/VX/whoever") if this was AS being bought out by AA/DL. But I just don't see WN changing WN to be FL.
I'm no huge WN fan, but anyone who thinks business pax shun the carrier needs to go visit LAX or OAK. Nothing but business pax, by the tens of thousands. WN owns the intrastate shuttle market in California. Nobody else even comes close.
Intra-Texas is the same way.
However, the bulk of WN's business is not that.
It's not all of their business, but both of those markets are huge reasons why they've succeeded, as well as other point-to-point business coach travel that just doesn't work well being forced through a hub (not to mention that often times, this will be on an RJ on another carrier). MKE and ATL have loads of opportunities for them to do similar things (plenty of places to fly to within 1-3 hours, WN's "sweet spot"), because WN excels at delivering cost-controlled, point to point, reliable coach travel... and this is a staple of the business world.