Originally Posted by Mountain Trader
The right and willingness of these programs to take this sort of action is one reason I laugh at high valuations of FF miles. It is also part of why I am much more concerned about UA and the ultimate fate of MP miles than I was 3 or 4 months ago. The bankruptcy has taken a very ugly turn with some pilots having their pensions slashed by 60% or more. If you look at the people around the table with an interest in UA, (employees, unions, stockholders, cities, suppliers, creditors and customers) just about all of them have taken a big haircut except for, perhaps, Bank One and the MP program.
My own prediction is that the really nasty stuff on devaluations will happen in an industrywide wave around, oh, about the time the first baby boomers start to retire, perhaps just before. There are probably quite a few people sitting on fat mileage balances who figured on using them in retirement, when they would have time.