Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
To offer a partial answer to the question posed in the thread title, we were told at the ATL DL DO that Richard Anderson uses DL for his domestic travel in coach in order not to take upgrades away from elites but takes various carriers in business class for international trips to evaluate the competition (my words).
Good executives fly the competition, bad ones don't. A friend of mine is the EVP of Emirates & he tells me that he flys airlines like LH, BA, AI, etc all the time (the airlines that try to compete) but wint waste time w airlines they don't compete with unless he's heard they have a great new product. Years ago, TWA had a small group in mgmnt (all part of the QA team) and half of what they did was fly around (on TWA & competitors)