Originally Posted by
narvik
Quite clever of UA really: keep passenger fares so high, that you can fly to Asia with 20000+ lbs less human weight whilst collecting the same (and more!) revenue:
haven't done the calculations, but revenue from a ~180 lbs (plus baggage) passenger at cheap pre-Covid fares might dwarf current cargo prices for equal weight.
I'd not be surprised if they're making more money now with ~50% to 60% passenger load factors than they did at much higher passenger load factors pre-Covid.
Anything to do with the availability of the nearly-free refund to credit? To get to 100% load they would need to lower prices, but lowering prices allow the earlier 60% refund-rebuy at the new lower price, total revenue actually falls as marginal cost increases?