Haha - I think it's been helped along by this new PR battle in various media outlets giving people who don't generally venture out of their usual FT sub-forums to see what discussions are flying around other parts of FT. I would think that most frequent contributors to FT are also known as a "travel person" amongst their circle of acquaintances, and so want to have some sort of reply for anyone who brings it up offline

A NY Times editorial (not op-ed) from yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/op...kies.html?_r=2

and a piece from last week with some more information about the current front on the battle, with points raised about antitrust immunity and TATL joint-ventures etc., and some rebuttals by Tim Clark e.g. about the rabbit hole of state-owned/managed airlines globally and new demographics with regard to globalisation (e.g. the demand for Seattle-Hyderabad with one stop being popular with tech workers)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/bu...greements.html