<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by 1director:
Many of us talk big about leaving CO, and maybe really have left, I haven't yet committed to leave, but leaning towards NW for 2004/2005...I wonder if there are true and accurate statistics that show how many people really defected CO and/or how frequent flier programs increased on other airlines, esp. NW and maybe AA and UA. I'm going to see if the press or a travel mag (maybe Randy?) can find this out just from sheer curiosity.</font>
I don't think there is any credible source for this nor will CO share any information they have. However, a data point is that when UA changed their SWU conditions for 1Ks, they created another offer (called "great offer") to get data on how and whether their customers had defected and soon after followed up with "an apology offer" of 4 additional SWUs with very little restrictions. And the protests were lot less than over here.
The conclusion is that it is difficult for an airline itself to predict or guage the reaction to a significant change, and they may be surprised one way or the other at the result. They will certainly monitor the situation. Anyone who claims CO knows exactly what will happen with this change and has factored it in has drunk too much CO kool-aid to make sense.