Why would UA (or any airline) offer a BE fare when there’s no low-cost nonstop competition on a route? If there’s no price shopping to be done, why not have economy as your lowest fare? Take IAD-CMH as a simple example. Seems like they’re giving money away. This assumes that a sizable portion of price-shoppers will still pay a premium for a nonstop.

“drive diversion”/Southwest effect. (the same thing that IMHO was the demise of CLE). Drivable nearby airports that offer lower prices will pull traffic from the higher cost nearby airports, potentially making them unsustainable.

not sure how this is different than any other set of fares, which flexuate based on many circumstances. BE, in most cases, will flexuate accordingly, as other fares do - isn’t BE mostly even programmed as a discount to regular available fares vs. set separately from them. We’ve seen occasional reports of things happening differently (I.e., where they might introduce a lower regular fare into the market , say a K fare that wasn’t available before, and mistakenly not introduce a BE match, therefore, for example, matching the BE fare to the next highest available fare, say a ‘T’). But generally, it’s a discount matching on what’s available. so as you get closer to departure, there will in many (but not all cases) not be lower buckets available, meaning yes, the BE available fares at that point could be higher than the previously available say, G fares. But that’s why it’s a bit silly to try and compare fares from one day to the next - they frequently change. Looking back and seeing if the price today is a good deal for the route based overall in the past may be ok to do, but comparing a BE fare today for a flight, say, next week vs. a different lower fare found for the same flight and date a month ago is really kind of silly.

while everyone likes to look at the airlines doing everything in unison, and it sometimes feels that way, they all have things they do differently. Different carriers have different strategies for responding to ULCC competition, and in pricing strategy on various accounts. In other ways, they are similar. Not every carrier is going to be able to compete in every aspect on every route. They have to pick and choose.

For better or worse, UAs strategy on BE is to provide fewer benefits on these fares than the competition because they want to have some sort of offering that matches lower pricing while convincing people they should pay more (and get the normal benefits). In other words, they don’t really want BE customers, and if people do buy it, wants to make it punitive (for lack of a better term at the moment) for them. That’s their choice and their strategy. If you don’t agree with it, that’s fine, and that gives you choices. You can either buy UAs BE, because you are price sensitive enough to be ok with the lack of benefits it provides, you can choose to buy a regular UA fare because you want to fly UA and want the offerings of a regular fare, you can buy [insert other carrier here] BE fare because you feel it’s a better decision for you, or you can go to a ULCC and deal with their disadvantages. It’s really up to you, and while I have my preference, I am not silly enough to think that other people won’t choose a different option because it’s right for them. You can certaintly complain to UA because you feel it’s the wrong thing for them to do butt UA has decided on a strategy for a reason, and it appears they don’t want to compete benefit for benefit in this segment of the market.

Its all good not to like it. But quite honestly, UA is going to do what it feels is best for this business. Right now, it seems that restricting full-size carry ons on BE fares is something they are going to keep doing. If it sends you to get a lowest fare somewhere else rather then spending a few bucks more on UA, they appear to be ok with that, as they are confident the seat you would have bought will go to another customer at a similar or higher fare.