Let us take the story about AA vs HP completely literally in a way that even mainstream media justifies its stories.
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The airline has cleaned up its operations, simplified its fare structure, launched transcontinental service--and started turning a profit.
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True
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America West sells first-class seats on Airbus A319s that ply the Boston-Los Angeles route for $998 roundtrip.
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True. Note that if a seat is available in FC it is that price period. No availability of specific fare buckets, etc. It is either that price or no seats are available.
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The chairs are 20.5 inches wide with 38 inches of seat pitch.
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True
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American Airlines charges $2,232.70 to fly first class on a Boeing 737-800.
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Literally true. Of course, there is one flight with a 767. American offers a YUP fare matching HP which may or may not be available. But that does not negate the above fact. If there is a FC seat available, the above price is the only one that will assure it on any day that you look and if you are not taking the first or the last flight (on a 757 with worse FC seats), you have to fly a 738.
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(AA) Seats are 21 inches wide and offer 40 inches of seat pitch.
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True
So far the sentences have all been factual but not necessarily all information.
Now look at the point of the story "Real routes, real fares, real decisions". The non-majors have arrived at a situation where they offer a "real" alternative to the big-6 on real routes.
What do you need to show for the above conclusion? That they are better than the majors in every possible combination of routes and flights? No. Simply that there are situations where they offer a real choice without much of a compromise in service or comfort.
The above true statements support that. Even if you take it for granted that AA YUP fars are always available (and ignore for the moment AA does this only in response to HP competition as opposed to competition from any of the other big-6 with whom it has colluded with insane fares for a very long time), one could reasonably conclude for this route that HP offers a "real" choice. It may not be the best choice for you personally for various other reasons but that is not the point of the story.
Your mileage may vary in the way you interpret this article but to compare this viewpoint to NE sensationalism is not doing justice to a viewpoint that is indeed a valid one.