It's worse than that. Those previously loyal middle-tier customers BA no longer cares about in these times of plenty will move on to establish long-running relationships with other airlines and will not be coming back to BA in times of hardship unless (until?) those other airlines oust them similarly. BA will be left with the few top VIPs it cares about and a mass of price-sensitive holiday flyers who will judge BA against LCCs.

But hey, the C suite will get their short-term bonus package and that's good enough.