I suppose this will alienate a lot of small businesses who use award travel for business purposes. WTG Delta. Also, how many of those 1,000,000 seats were rebooked as award tickets at low mileage rates? How much of this is about getting additional skymiles off the books vs. whether a seat flies empty?
Hell, due to the magnitude of IRROPS, other than the 10PM ATL-DCA flight, I haven't been on a flight in months with an empty seat.