Originally Posted by
commavia
Ha, yeah - fun times. As I've said elsewhere - I totally get Delta's calculus when they cancelled the interline. In effect, they thought the "price" they were paying - in the form of disproportionately more IRROP reaccomm's from AA - was too high for what they were getting back in return. But that's the thing about insurance policies - which is, in a sense, what interlines are: you never really know for sure what they're worth. Looking back in hindsight, while it's impossible to ever really know, I'd be curious to know - since last August's IT meltdown - how that whole 5:1 ratio of AA-to-Delta interline reaccomm's would have changed had the interline have still been there. Something tells me it would have come closer to parity.
Brett made a point in the second article, though, that IRROPS rebookings are basically free money for the receiving airline. They are seats that otherwise would have gone out empty (since they're filled at the very last minute, well after even the very-last-minute-booking business travelers), so it's no actual
loss to Delta to have those seats filled.
Brett's point was that this was a simple money grab: Delta gambled that they could sell those seats to AA (and UA) at a higher price and pad their margins even more...and that was a gamble that they lost with AA (though they did win with UA).
Originally Posted by
commavia
Now in this case, I totally get that AA's flights - especially in and out of ATL - are probably all full anyway given spring break and Delta flyers self-booking onto AA. But that said, regardless of what the financial analysts at headquarters concluded, I'm quite sure that Delta's operations people - gate and res agents - would love the option of even just a few seats on AA today, especially since, as already stated, the airline that most overlaps Delta in and around ATL in the southeastern U.S. is AA. With thousands of people disrupted, every seat helps.
Sure, AA's flights out of ATL were full, but while ATL bore (and is bearing) the brunt of DL's operational failure, don't forget that there are thousands of people stranded elsewhere. I myself had a relatively short delay in DFW but could easily have been rebooked on one of the several DFW-SGF AA non-stops (thus freeing up a seat into and out of ATL), and the tremendous strain that is going on at DCA could be significantly mitigated by moving people to AA's extensive network at that airport.