It has to be so tough for US management to determine what course to take.

Do they become JetBlue by getting rid of First Class and adding in-seat IFE? Even if you just ignore the serial upgraders, there does have to be some paid First traffic. If you completely get rid of First domestically (on both mainline and RJs), you will lost a small, but high-revenue, segment.

GoFares, if they're like what AS does (charge a rational Y fare and then tack on an extra $100 for First) will drive away the serial upgraders and their aggregate revenue, but if their aggregate revenue is always negative (as in below cost) then it's debatable if it's worth catering to them. But if they do generate positive revenue (and the businessfolk probably do), that's money US risks losing to UA and others. On the flip side, paid F and Y, even if a third or less of what it costs now, could be sufficient to turn unprofitable flights into profitable ones due to much higher sales penetration.

Also, just as UA suffers a bit on the paid premium international side to cities like LAS and MCO, thanks to TED (who wants to fly in First or Business to IAD and then spend four hours in Economy Plus?), if US gets too aggressive in disbanding F and running RJs everywhere, the fact they don't have Economy Plus (unless they take a page from B6 and expand pitch to 33-34") will hurt them for travel beyond PHL, PIT, and CLT. More folks will fly UA LHR-IAD-LAX in First/Business then US First/Business LGW-PHL and then Economy PHL-LAX. Making three connections like LGW-PHL on US then PHL-IAD and IAD-LAX on UA is probably not going to be a popular option - if it would only be a viable one.

I understand those who say "why add seats when your load factor is only 70%?", but the key to that is volume. Most UA FlyerTalkers curse TED with a passion due to no First Class, but TED flies 85%-100% loads so those extra eighteen Economy seats are generating more revenue per flight then those 12 First seats (as most TED routes were under 5% paid First) for no other reason your selling 18 Economy seats at the same price you sold the 12 First seats for, and you now have six extra revenue seats and lower service costs (no meals, no free liquor). So if US lowers fares to fill those seats, they can make on volume what they're losing on per seat. 100 seats at $200 a seat generates $20,000 in revenue, but if they can sell all 150 seats at $150 a seat, that's $22,500 in revenue. It gets even better on RJs, when you actually put 70 seats in a 70-seat RJ then a mixed-class with 56 seats.