Originally Posted by
spin88
Delta's prism was lower than Ua+co's in 2011. The projections was the larger network would be revenue accretive. Yet, UA is now - after 5 years of customer unfriendly changes, far behind delta. Had united kept pace with delta, it would have had another $2.55 billion in revenue in 2016.
How delta handles vdb compensation (it sets 2000 in authority for managers/seat, and they can toss in hotels, meals, etc vs the hard cap of $800 that smisik's folks set) is only one small part of the picture.
Over time better service creates pricing power, and poor service causes a need to discount. This incident will just add to the difference between UA and its rivals, the only question is how much impact it will have. I expect it to be major as united has become a toxic brand that people want to avoid, and the cheaper fares they will need to offer will immediately involve the thought that 'well they have to be cheaper they are a horrible airline.
Put another way, it's quite possible a policies that include higher VDB might increase revenue and profitability. Looking purely at current revenue numbers misses this point.
Also note that DL's VDB limit is much higher than the IDB mandate, despite many posts in this thread that there's no reason to have a higher VDB payment than what might have to be paid for IDB.
It is doubtful DL would ever pay $9,950 (perhaps with extremely rare exceptions). Hard to see many flights on which someone wouldn't take substantially lower amounts.