Originally Posted by
exerda
I suspect many are replaced by customers who pay less. Tough to attract new HVFs when UA has such a poor reputation for its product. Really, only nonstop service in "the network" is what saves them.
Explain to me how that works? Are you saying that the customers who left were buying unrestricted or higher fares when lower fares were available?
Originally Posted by
EXLEFTSEAT
There is no automatic replacement for customers who leave. However, that might be on UAL's wishlist. Since the HVFs are limited by design it stands to reason that a replacement, if any, would be a pax paying less. The loss might be slightly mitigated by income derived from TOD, which fills the seat in the front and opens another low fare seat in the back.
Load factors have not dropped, so every customer that left was replaced by another. We know that paid F and corporate traffic has not declined (both are up), so who were these other HVFs?