Originally Posted by
ESpen36
Of those 56 million, probably less than 1/4 have regular (quarterly? monthly?) flight activity.
Remember that the vast majority of the traveling public has 3-4 business trips per year and the annual vacation with the kids to Disney. We FTers are unusual!
I would estimate close to a million GLDs (most of whom probably don't even realize they have it and never take advantage of the benefits). This category would include 1MMers who never fly or who have partner activity only.
Among AA elites (ONLY elites), perhaps 30-40% are PLT, and less than 10% are EXP.
Also, we have to keep in mind that if we fly LGA-DFW, LGA-ORD, LAX-JFK, RDU-AUS, AUS-SJC, that we will experience a much higher proportion of elites than a normal representative sample.
For any given mainline widebody flight ON AVERAGE, perhaps we could say an AVERAGE of 6-10 GLDs, 3-4 PLTs, 1 or 0 EXPs.
I have based these numbers on no actual data; just my personal speculation. So no flames please!
My own data (based on anecdotal visual evidence, NOT scientific) is similar to yours. Flying out of TPA I rarely see any other Plats, EXP, or Golds, and there are usually 1 or 2 other people boarding when they annouce ExP and Plat boarding. It's hard to tell how many F pax are Elite. It's a different situation out of DFW, STL, MIA, and ORD. Especially in STL I notice a lot of GOLD on boarding passes (yes I try and sneak a peak at everyone's to get an idea). MIA I've noticed a lot of plats.
My guess is for the average MD80, there is 1 EXP, 2 PLAT, and 3 Golds, with the exception of hub flights, say from SJU-MIA there are 2-3 EXP and 3-4 PLAT, unknown Golds.
I would love to hear an official number.