My point is any change that an Airline needs to take to keep solvent is met with hostility. Cutting Pension or wages or Employees the Union is all over your ... blocking the process. Reduce FF benefits or require more loyalty to earn perks and the FF's swear you off and move on to another airline. Except that as a FF I cant move to another carrier. It seems like AA is the FF program du jour. Does AA have that many less warts ?

Point is that no change would have been exceptable in their FF program. Can somehere really tell me that if your airline of choice reduced miles earned or increased award prices that you would tolerate it ? I dont think so. So how do they survive, no FF is willing to give an inch without *****ing about it.

Everyone has a gripe, no one has a solution to the current and impending doom of many airlines. I for one am tired of using tax dollars to bail them out, and I have miles on 4 different airlines, so I am bound to lose something if they fold like a tent.

OK Please tell me how the unions at US "blocked" the process? They gave not once, but as many as 4 separate times to save US. They are even willing to renegotiate the ALPA pension after some legal wrangling.

As for choices, I have 3 distinct choices if US alters DM significantly or not to MY liking. First choice is CO One Pass, which is an OK program. Already talked to them and they will comp me status EQUAL to US earned status. DL is another less palatable option. The third is a combination of discounters not named SWA who can get me 100% of the places I went the last three years.

Unlike a union and their wages, I do not have to accept cuts in my FF program, as i pointed out I have options. It is neither my fault or my worry whether they have a healthy bottom line, that is the shareholders worry not mine. My job is to be a good customer, and a good customer is:

1. loyal and responds to and takes advantage of promotions in return he/she gives the bulk of the business to that company

2. a PAX who knows and plays by the rules set forth by the company, leveraging them to his/her full advantage.

3. someone who pays the published fare that best meets their requirements!

4. someone who understands exactly what the airlines have control over and holds his vendor to its policies and procedures and voices his concerns when they don't meet their obligations under the rules.

5. Is polite, courteous and professional in his/her dealings and expects the same in return

6. someone who understands value and realizes that the sour taste of poor performance lingers long after the sweetness of low price is gone!

I perform these 6 duties each and every time I fly. I fulfill my obligation as a ticket buyer and in return for being a good customer I recieve certain benefits. If the company providing the service decides to alter their loyalty program in a way that is detrimental to me personally or my company then I am duty bound as a customer to revaluate that relationship and voice concerns and if required take my business elsewhere. As for the financial woes of the majors i ask you the following?

1. Do I set Prices?
2. Did I create the fare rules and structure?
3. Did I design and implement the FF programs?
4. Did I drive away the last minute business traveler?
5. Did I make the following statement to USA Today? and enrage my core customers at a critical time in the companys history?

"Someone who flies a lot isn't necessarily loyal if what they're doing is buying the lowest-priced ticket every time they fly," he says. "That's not necessarily the kind of loyalty we want to reward. We want to reward those people who pay a premium for the services we offer." (B. Ben Baldanza)

Seems to me that if the major airlines want to see the cause of their current woes I would humbly submit that Mssrs. Siegel, Carty, Mullins, Bethune, Anderson and Tilton stand in front of a freaking mirror!!! These so called leaders don't know the last thing about how to treat customers never mind the first thing. I mean let's see we're in the worst economic situation in modern aviation history, Let's see just how many of our core customers we can alienate on the road to bankruptcy!

To me the place to spend the limited marketing resources would be in strengthening the FF programs. Example: US emerges from BK, They announce some minor enhancement to DM and actively solicit DL Sky Miles members in light of the changes made there. They offer Sky Miles member all kinds of challenges and comp status and steal a ton of loyal customers from their key east coast competititor. That's Business 101. think we'll see that? we might? US has NOTHING to lose and everything to gain.

I would have to generally side with the higher-expectations crowd. The point about liability being carried at low rates has been made and is telling, as it shows that airlines aggressively direct award redemption ability to seats that would have gone unfilled anyway.

And lest we forget, the airlines have made lots of money selling miles for use as incentives for non-flight activities. That's been directly responsible for the number of unredeemed miles getting so out of whack compared to the awards available. Then they come along and devalue...that's like issuing your own Monopoly money in exchange for real cash and then saying the Monopoly money is now worth only half what it was.

And finally, airlines are now also trying to milk change fees for award tickets as a big source of revenue. If you have a transcon AA award, for example, they could charge you $100 to make a change, or about the cost of flying one-way from Atlanta to L.A. on AirTran or JetBlue.

If the discounters could find a way to get people to Europe or Hawaii on awards through their own FF programs, they could pick off quite a bit of business from the Big 6, IMO.

Excellent post, PineyBob.

My wife spend more at Nordstroms than she does with any airline. She keeps going back because of the great service and selection, etc. She never goes back because of some sort of loyalty program, yet they do the best job in their respective industry. The capital markets will ultimately even things out as we will all migrate to the best overall air travel product. The complexities of the airline business and the uniqeness of the way funds are spent on air travel, i.e. "my bosses money", are just slowing and clouding the process of free markets; not changing them.

IF it was not for my lovely miles I would say that all the US airlines currently in trouble deserve no better than to go out of business. They screwed up badly. They screwed their employees, they screwed their customers, they screwed the taxpayers, and now they should just RIP. In this country which builds beautiful 777s, 747s, 737s, etc. some airlines operate about the oldest fleets in the Western world, still with 727s and DC9s the dream of any aviation historian. While I love my miles I do not want to wait until the first carrier takes out the bathrooms on flights under 6 hours to accomodate more passengers. Even though, with no more drinks this would be a viable option