Guys, stop reading into everything I say so literally.
^ This is the point I was making. It's an extreme example to be sure, but this kind of behaviour is more common than you might think. Airline operating margins are slim. Go look at the breakdown of your last intra-European Y ticket, the % that goes to taxes and airport fees compared to the portion we get to keep, from which we have to deduct all our costs.
And people can wax poetic all they want about the value of past loyalty (which, don't get me wrong, is absolutely valued), but the reality is we are a business with many
current and ongoing costs - which includes things like lounge, the variable costs for which are clearly higher than many of you seem to think.
So yes, absolutely we appreciate the years of loyalty and this is why we continue to maintain the PFL program, but there's also a reason a) why lifetime loyalty programs are so rare, b) why they often are difficult to attain, c) why some have age limits before you can earn it, and d) why they don't usually include top (or near top) status.
It's also why we changed the system so that earning Ultimate twice and then never flying AFKL again is no longer enough to qualify for PFL.
(To put things into perspective: SK only has LT Gold. BA recently drastically increased their LT Gold threshold. LH only recently introduced it, only counts the equivalent of UXP, and earning LT SEN is harder than earning PFL. AA/DL/UA/AC 1MM equivalents (equivalent to 10 years at 100k, which previously was equivalent to top tier status) generally starts at low- or mid-tier status. You need 3x that to get Platinum-equivalent benefits. )