Originally Posted by
alhcfp
Disagree- that is like saying people that redeem miles are flying for free.
That's not like saying that at all. Pax flying on award tickets have earned those mile via monies paid to AA (in the vast majority of cases). Also, by using miles, pax are reducing a liability on AA's balance sheet - another direct financial benefit for the airline.
Originally Posted by
alhcfp
As any large company, AA has department budget allocations. So pilot ops can be paying the pax revenue dept a fee for the deadhead pilot.
Moving budget allocations between departments isn't making AA, as a business, any money so you can hardly compare that "revenue" to revenue from pax.