Originally Posted by
ethernal
There is a reason loyalty programs exist... the airline market has always been a top heavy game. If I had to bet without having done a market analysis, it beats the classic Pareto 80:20 rule and the real ratio is that the top 5% of individual flyers (by spend) in a year likely drives substantially more than half of total revenue.
As with gaming (both of the casino and casual variety), the business is built on finding the whales.
It's not a coincidence that both FFPs and casinos rely on booze to get their respective addicts through the door and to stay... and there are presumably quite a few folks who are 360-equivalent at Candy Crush sitting in a jump seat on every DL flight.