ftnoob

No problemo! Everybody knows I'm not one of the fanboys, but it seems to me there has been some flawed perception of the new program.

Here's something else to put in your pipe and smoke: for the self-employed the combination of the new program and the tax laws can make BS fares roughly equivalent to, or even cheaper than, WGA fares. Consider the fares for the LAX-BOI example mentioned above. BS is $293, the lowest WGA in the next few months is $122, and that's not on a huge number of travel days. Between income tax and FICA, a self-employed person may have a marginal tax rate of 40%. So paying $293 instead of $122 means Uncle Sam is picking up $68 of the difference in the fare. The owner realizes a non-taxable benefit of $117 (more when segment fees and PFCs are considered). So the net cost of the $293 fare is $108. Compare that to a $122 WGA fare with a rebate of 10% (net = $110), or the more common $142 WGA fare (net $128 vs. $116 net for BS).

I predict that we'll soon see bodies in every one of those 15 BS boarding positions. Did somebody say "time to buy LUV?"...but for the wrong reason? That $100 million expenditure is going to pay itself back many times over, and it won't take all that long.

(Despite all the above, RR 2.0 is such a loser for me that it essentially forces me to start accumulating miles on legacies...but that's a topic for its own post.)