Sorry, messed up my statement about the "less profitable" - should be "loss-making" - shall correct my post. But I do stand by my statement that it is possible to have some profitable customers and yet still have overall losses simply because there are more loss-generating customers than there are profitable ones...

Passenger A costs $100 to transport/maintain (including upgrades, bonus miles, etc.) but gives the airline $120 for the service: hence profitable.
Passenger B costs $100 to transport/maintain, but gives the airline $90; not profitable.
Passenger C costs $100 to transport/maintain (including upgrades, bonus miles, etc.) but gives the airline $80 for the service; not profitable.

Overall, Revenues = $290; Costs = $300. Loss = $10.

The problem with the US airlines is that they have way more passengers B and C than A. In fact, most airlines appear to operate under the philosophy "we are losing money on each passenger but will make it up with volume." :D

Also airlines that focus on "B" tend to be profitable.

Most "A" passengers tend to become "C" passengers when they're flying on their own dime & bringing their families along, so a lot of that "profit" will disappear in the wash.

Based on one of the other current threads, I think the answer to that is people who work for companies which will buy them refundable, upgradable Y but will not buy F. So they always buy YBM, and sometimes they manage to use their PMU's. That thread explains why people use personal PMU's for company travel (basically, because the PMU's aren't good enough value, with the cost of YBM, for them to want to save those PMU's for personal travel).

To complicate that is the issue that the airline might lose less by flying a passenger for $80 then by flying with the seat empty, or by grounding the plane and still paying the lease costs. A rough business.

Hmmm.... the upgrades only cleared 7 hours before the flight departed NRT, and the NRT flight was roughly 4pm at that time. I called in almost hourly from the day before, and called again when I got up in Asia before going to the airport.

I also remember posting in old threads about this where other people reported the same thing ---- the PMU's are not unusable DoD, they are only unusable once you have checked in with the upgrade not cleared yet. IOW, you have roughly up to 2 hours before the flight to call in and beg, ask, plead to get the Z cleared but once checked in without the upgrade cleared, you are SOL as no standbys allowed.

Not many people new about this (or only found out after checking in and requesting to be put on the upgrade list and for the first time hearing "no standby allowed DoD").

A little searching will find the older threads, but I've got to catch a plane (TPAC, so no gogo)

:)

Fuel burns vary but for a 777 it's 60 passenger miles per gallon. 2009 Jet A prices have average $1.75 / gallon for the airlines, so for $80 they can haul you 2700 miles & still throw in a bag of peanuts & a glass of ice w/ coke on top.

In most cases they're better off taking the passenger for the incremental income.

When airlines choose to cut prices below costs for marketing purposes (e.g. so as not to lose market share), that's their problem. I've no qualms about buying the tickets.

Unfortunately a stark reality today. Over in the UA forum they even maintain a post with a list of the grounded planes. :eek:

Source please?

Sounds to me like Bullpucky statistics that you are inventing.

Yet you scream to high heaven over any change in the FF program that you see as detrimental to it's value in your eyes.

You want the cheap tickets, and all the benefits currently in the FF plan, plus additional FF benefits. Does that sum it up?

Bullpucky... isn't that the stuff that comes off fleeced sheeple?

LOL!!!! :D

"B" is airlines line Southwest, Virgin Blue, RyanAir. All profitable, I believe. Cheap passengers, cheap tickets, low margins, profits.

Is an op-up to WBC/BE a possibility here?

But, in the A, B, C example to which you responded, the model was that Pax A, B, and C each cost $100 to transport, yet paid only $90 for the ticket. How do they make profit, while losing $10 on each passenger?

Since Southwest is the only USA airline on the list, and their fares and margins are in fact very often higher than DL's and a completely different business model.

The bigger point is I was looking for your source for the statement that the A flyers become C flyers when flying on their own dime and that eliminates the A flyer's profitability?

If it is not, I am sure you will post somewhere how it is unfair that it is not, that Jeff promised it, that NWA flyers always had it before, that AA would do it for free in F, and WN gives it to everyone automatically.