Continental executives have a fiduciary duty to take these actions and attempt to defeat competitors.
It's their job and it is designed to help revenue and make shareholders happy. I'm sure they don't really care if some passengers think they're stupid.
As far as it not being newsworthy, that's what PR Newswire is all about. You pay to release your own content, regardless of if it's important or not. The news media reads the articles and decides if they think it's newsworthy. The FT picked up the story.