Tango: The prblem was not that you were preventing a higher paying passenger from paying for your seat. It's that the airline still had to fly the plane, at a huge expense, ersus the minimal revenue they brought in for it.

I believe part of this plan, is that they need to cut routes and aircraft as well, and keep the highest yielding, profitable ones.

My question is, if you don't buyt that $200 ticket now, because you don't like this decision to dis-continue point earnings on this fare class, is the airline better off. I think the answer is yes....it's additional justification to cancel the flight, and permanently dis-continue it....if other act the way you have and take your un-profitable business to another airline.

I don't deny that the airlines are run ...-back ward in many cases. Another lesson I learned in business school was that the easiest way to identify your dumbest competitor was to look for the one who competes on price...in the US airline industry, that means almost everyone. The industry needs to fix its pricing issues. $200 fares in many cases are impossible to make profitable.

MARCUSSPRAT: I agree that many flyers provide many different average yields. I think the point I ws trying to make, is that in US Airways case, an effective way to stop the bleeding, is to try and identify your most un-profitable segment of customers, and'FIRE' them essentially.

I once worked for a profitable airline, and we did the exact same thing. We called it account cohart management. We analyzed average yields of our largest custmers, and if they didn't meet the mark, we made a conscious decision to raise their rates to profitable levels. If they walked, they walked....didn't matter because the company was better for it.

This strategy may have a few profitable customers within...some $200 yields also buy full fares...but for the most part, I think they've done a good job at identifying an un-profitable segment, and taking appropriate action

Just my thoughts