To be fair - you have said you like the SWUs the way they are - many here do not. Would you feel the same about the critizism(abuse it way too strong) hurled at DL if the SWUs did not work for you.

Yes I would. Sure, I would like to have upgrades on cheaper fares, but I know that DL must make choices in order to remain an ongoing concern. For every additional benefit, something else would have to go.

The abuse (and I would term it abuse) is not only uncalled for and unseemly, but I feel it trivializes the very FTers that the posters purport to be "fighting" for.

Why do you think that should be the case? Competing airlines seem to be able to manage better than Delta without taking valuable benefits away. I know of a lot of people who are refraining pouring more money into Delta because of the mediocre PMUs among other things. That is revenue that could have gone to Delta but goes to the competition.

Wow. Have we hit the nail on the head.

My biggest gripe with FT (and with the moaning on this thread, in particular) is that so many are willing to reflexively fall back on "taking care of your best customers", yet abandon ship when a program actually is designed for the "best customers". The real big spenders on this board (EPs) are not the most vocal in complaining about the PMUs. Indeed, I would say that the majority of the EPs actually like the PMUs as currently constructed.

What we have is a gaggle of relatively low-yielding FFers that want SkyMiles to meet their needs. I can empathize with this. What I shake my head at, though, is the complete lack of perspective. Many (most?) elites get way more out of the system than they contribute. I mean, way more. I put my annual benefits from DL PM status in the $1500-range. I put my incremental spend in the $200-range, and I begrudge every penny of that.

Complain about the lack of cheapo SWUs all you want. What I don't want to see, however, is those same folks then ever mentioning phrases like "most valuable", "most loyal", or "best customers".

The purported "abuse" long predates the merger and any involvement of NW elites. Delta's own elites here in FT haven't exactly been enchanted with him in the past, and for exactly the same reasons. His opening salvos with the NW elites in January reinforced those impressions and gave us our own first-hand introduction.

Your postings keep insinuating that it's the recent development of a few people and the "very FTers that they purport to be 'fighting' for". It isn't. That's just the latest example in a long trend.

The only way to undo the damage is for the person in question to be meticulously honest & never misleading in the future and to re-earn the respect that he has lost. There is no other way out of it. Respect is something that is earned, not given on demand.

None of this is unique to Delta. Month after month of traffic reports shows most airlines reporting similar drops in traffic, yield, unit revenues, etc. There is not one airline that is an outlier either on the positive or negative side.

Every legacy carrier has reduced capacity this year and the aggressive LCCs that were originally intent on growing have either slowed their growth quite a bit or started to cut as well.

As for letting people go, virtually all legacy carriers have announced furloughs and redundancies on top of the volunteers that decided to take early-outs through special programs offered by carriers earlier in the year.
Delta actually has been just about the only legacy carrier that still has not involuntarily furloughed any front-line employee. The recent layoff announcement was for salaried management and admin staff, not front-line employees. CO has furloughed FAs and pilots this year, AS just announced furloughing of pilots, AA has furloughed FAs, etc.

With regard to DL systemwide upgrades and keeping your own words in mind,

would you be satisfied or dissatisfied if DL allowed lower fares to be upgraded using the systemwide upgrades?

I don't agree with you! Real SWUs are offered by AA and UA to ExP and 1k elites, and the two companies are still in business. Hence, IMHO it is economically feasible for DL to do it.

I don't know how typical my experience is, but please consider the following:
The premise that I have read here is that some of the existing PMU users would no longer pay M-fares and that would cost DL a ton of money. I doubt it! I believe most M+PMU fliers have their tickets bought by their company/client and they would keep flying as usual if you gave them enough PMUs as they would keep their real SWUs for personal travel.

I view PMUs not as a perk but as profit maker for DL. Hence, if I was DL I would give more not less PMUs, I may even make M+ fare upgradable on the D-o-D without PMUs. Hence making the 20% that use them happier.

I view not having real SWUs for DMs as an "image fiasco", since it requires more miles than UA's 1k and AA's ExP. It encourages switching alliance and discourages heavy fliers from switching to DL. Also not having real SWUs makes DL look cheap.

Ummm... Neither UA nor AA actually make money. Haven't in a long time. Indeed, both are considered as much higher bankruptcy risks than DL. I fully support people jumping from one carrier to another, but let us at least be honest about the implications to the airlines from our disloyalty. This was always PMMMDL's point.

I can't believe the mudslinging is still going on in this thread...
Let's grab a drink instead!

Good point about UA, but the risk/rating for AA is about the same as DL, but that was not my main point. I honestly believe that a well structured SWU/PMU system (with many PMUs and a few "real SWU" opportunities) for PM/DMs would bring more money to DL than the existing PMU system. It would improve DL's FF image, make DM competitive/appealing and make 100k+ PMs want to fly more.

If Bud Light Lime is available, I'm there

it's not 80% more, it's 400% more. If .2x of PMU's are being used now, and 1.0x of PMU's end up getting used in the new regime, that's five times as many overall. The increase is 400%. However, the PM allotment of SWU's is to shrink by 33%, so although the usage rate could increase by 400%, the number of seats sought would increase by some lesser amount (assuming there are many times the number of PM's as DM's).

Anyway, didn't they say the Z capacity would only be relevant for pre-clearing before departure day in the new system?

One thing to keep in mind here is there will no longer be 80% unused PMU's once they become threshold options. People who find them useless will be inclined to pick other options.

6 PMU's at 125K could be one sub-option, 2 SWU's a competing sub-option.