Originally Posted by
pinniped
I'm guessing they were hoping for a quick and quiet win without any attention. The Skiplagged thing didn't exactly blow up to front-page news, but it attracted a fair bit of attention and got a little bit of run in mainstream media.
The airlines would like to squash HCT where they can, but not at the expense of too much inquisitiveness into how fortress hubs and anticompetitive pricing come about to begin with.
I imagine the lawsuit brought to attention the concept of HCT (and Skiplagged) to many people that had never heard of it before. United probably didn't want even more people trying this. Of course, if it was as simple a victory as many on here seem to think, they would have refiled.