Darlox

There's also a big push here to "Save our Hub" from the local business community. They define saving the hub as going out of your way to fly UA when possible.

... and I'm just mercenary enough to fully believe that UA is capitalizing on that by jacking prices, knowing that local businesses are being encouraged to direct business there. And, as an earlier poster noted, I'm not quite jaded enough to believe that they're jacking prices to decrease revenue to the point where they have an excuse to leave, I do FULLY believe that is precisely what will end up happening in the end.

The price differential is enough that companies we work with on the east side have even started sending travelers to PIT (as well as CAK) for certain destinations. CAK is seeing a lot of Boston travel (AirTran) and PIT is seeing a lot of Philly and other east-coast destinations where US is strong. Many companies are still paying UA whatever they ask, but I do see that starting to fray a bit at the edges...

The "Save our Hub" crowd are getting a little less believable these days because of what is perceived locally as an acceleration in UA's price increases out of CLE. Whether that's factually true or not, quite a lot of people are grumbling about it.

EDIT: I'm also willing to believe that the push from the business community is working - and so loads are higher, and therefore the average prices we're seeing, particularly near-term, are higher than they used to be when loads were lower?? But if that's the case, I would think that UA would add capacity here rather than cede positive momentum to DL or AA (or CAK or PIT). And they're not doing that -- in fact, they're still cutting. So there's gamesmanship going on, without question, even if we don't know the reasons.