Originally Posted by
luckypierre
How sensitive is the PRASM to evaluating HVF defections? Anecdotally, among the 20 or so folks that I know well enough to have an understanding of their United travel patterns, about 2/3rds (including a half dozen based in Houston) have moved the bulk of their business to other airlines, mostly AA.
Can a flat or declining number give any insight or is it simply overwhelmed by other, larger factors in the airline's performance (route structure, fleet choice, etc)?
It can be huge.
With the number of poaches leaked by DL and AA, it's in the tens of thousands of customers.
Even if you say, conservatively, that UA lost 20,000 1K/GS type customers, averaging $25,000 annual spend each, that's half a billion dollars right there.
UA's underperformance with respect to DL is somewhere along the lines of $2 billion a years, so I suspect the number of defections is even greater.
Of course they're not going to talk about that.