I dug up some numbers from 2006 10K reports:

UA Mainline* - Load 82.1%, Break-even load N/A, Rev per ASM 11.5c, Cost per ASM 11.2c, Yield per RPM 12.2 RPM

Mesa - Load 74.8%, Break-even load 61.1%, Rev per ASM 14.6c, Cost per ASM 13.5c, Yield per RPM 19.5c

Skywest - Load 78.3%, Break-even load 72.7%, Rev per ASM 15.4c, Cost per ASM 14.3c, Yield per RPM 19.5c

*UA data only Feb-Dec of 2006, after bankruptcy.

For you financially-astute FTers, how can this be possible? UA mainline having lower cost per ASM than regionals? Lower rev per ASM? My educated guess would have been the other way around.

Why is Revenue per ASM so low? Do people redeem miles against UA, but UA pays cold hard cash to regionals for those seats? But other legacies don't have these wierd numbers. I just can't see how revenue is so low when load is high, there being plenty of F/C seats, and all the business pax on FT that pay top last-minute fares.

Perhaps it's us evil FTers extensively booking fares of 5 CPM and lower!! Wait, we do it to other carriers too?