Originally Posted by
Col Ronson
UA isn't going to lose those folk. Where are those folk going to go? WN? no first class. B6? no star alliance. AA? they're switching to revenue eventually. DL? they're already doing this.
People forget DL did this last year, and this year DL is making profit lol. Everyone talks and talks, and nobody does anything.
Seriously?
Delta is not making money because of, or in spite of its FFP. It is simply a better run company with a successfully completed merger, lower operating costs, owns an oil refinery to slash fuel costs and offers a better product that customers appear willing to pay for - in spite of an industry lagging FFP.
There is little to no correlation between the FFP and "making money" - their changes are designed to drive small amounts of incremental revenue while just changing miles from a free commodity offered on flights to a revenue commodity sold to American Express.
United is a horribly mismanaged company, suffers from high costs, splintered labor units, an industry lagging product, higher operating costs and a product few are willing to pay a premium for. There will be no correlation between this change and United making money - this is nothing but another copycat move with little basis in functional reality as it pertains to UA's bottom line in the future.
Originally Posted by
Col Ronson
from my experience corporate travel bookers do not book airlines based on their frequent flier program.
This is patently untrue. 90% of corp travelers self-book their air travel through portal systems and make choices based on their ability to accrue benefits. For the rest of those who work with small agencies like ours, we are always instructed to book the airline of the customer's choice unless the fare difference is out of bounds and in almost every case we book what the customer requests.
Loyalty is still a key driver.