Enough negativity. Let's think happy thoughts. Tell me if this analysis is directionally correct?
In 2019, there are roughly 1,060,000 RPUs in circulation. In 2020 that number will decrease to roughly 368,000. That's a massive reduction in demand.
What's even more interesting is GS will lose roughly 87% of their RPUs in 2020 vs 2019. That's huge. Today, if there's a GS on your flight, they're guaranteed to have an RPU. Next year, there will be lots of GS on flights, who simply don't have any RPUs left. All else being equal, RPUs should become much easier for 1Ks in 2020!
The assumptions I used are:
1K members - 100K in '19, 90K in '20
GS members - 3K in '19, 3K in '20
1K RPUs - 10 in '19, 4 in '20
GS RPUs - 30 in' 19, 4 in '20