Originally Posted by jasondc

While $500 round trip (or $250 one way) is better than $300 roundtrip ($150 one way), it still is not enough to be profitable. Per AA's Q1 reports (and yes, there probably is an update for Q2, but it wont differ too dramatically), their mainline CASM - cost per available seat mile - is 11.58 cents. A $250 one way fare, over 2401 miles PHX-LAX (taken from Great Circle Mapper), shows a Revenue per Available seat mile (RASM) of 10.4 cents. Given that the actual fare is probably around $220 one way (a guess - I'm not sure how much is taken out for taxes), the RASM is even lower, meaning it's even more unprofitable. Fares need to be higher, or there need to be a good portion of people on last minute higher fares or premium fares (full Y, paid F, etc) to make this a winning proposition.