Indeed. That's why in order to keep the balance, I already defected to weero's camp.

However, being the would-be psychologist that I am, I have an easy explanation for this trend (and why it originated over at the U.S. airline boards, spilling over to LH).

Here's my theory: If an airline gets consistently worse, offering decent service only to small portion of their customers (like HONs at LH, UGS at UA etc.), those status customers have

a) a problem justifying their continued loyalty before themselves
b) to fight over what little perks and customer service are left for them

In order to avoid cognitive dissonnance, group a) defend HAS to defend the airline. As long as it's the customer's and not the airline's fault, things aren't that bad, are they?

Point b) is fighting over scarce ressources. Things have objectively become so bad at many airlines (including LH/OS/LX) in comparison to how it used to be 10 years ago that status pax are fighting each other about the valuable perks that do remain. Hence, many status pax (and we have many HONs and high-level SENs on this board) don't think that those with lower status or infrequent LH flyers (which includes high-status pax from other airlines) should be entitled to the same level of perks they get. Just listen to the HONs who eloquently expressed their satisfaction about non-HON F pax NOT getting a PA anymore, NOT getting though security faster anymore, not getting limo transfers between flights etc. Usually, one should be happy for others, but in reality, those folks do feel that they would get LESS perks if LH gave in to the demands of others or simply offered a higher level of general service to pax with lower status.

It's funny that many defenders always assume the position of the airline - the financial position, that is. They usually argue that LH (or any airline, it's really across the board) can't afford this, can't afford that, would sacrifice profits here and might lose high-yield customers there. Amazingly, none of those postes works for the respecitve airlines, and none of them actually knows any hard numbers. It's all theory based on more or less wild assumptions about the inner financial workings of the airline. In reality, those posters don't worry about the airline's money. But they do worry about the money the airline might NOT spend on special status perks, because the funds are used to provide better service for a broader base.