AAmech - empty seats are a bigger liabilty that double FF miles out of PIT, PHL and CLT. Rather than jump at an opportunity to get more paying customers, AA just jumped on the "if we make refundable fares inflexible, business will have no choice but to pay more". That, IMHO is a horrible miscalculation. Look, if you are a corporate travel manager, you just saw two pretty big travel headlines in the past couple of weeks - Southwest just lowered their HIGHEST walk up fares by a hundred bucks. There is NO PLACE they fly that will cost more than a $299. And then you read how non refundable tickets are given full credit towards another flight. Then you read about U,UAL and now AA adopting a policy of "use it or lose it". You see them implement a hundred dollar fee, just to stand by for a flight. If you are spending your companies travel dollar, how are you going to justify the "risk" of perhaps losing the fare you buy on AA and being forced to buy a last minute walk up fare over just paying whatever the best fare is on Southwest? Please don't give me the assigned seat argument. Travel managers are looking to save money any way they can, and I really doubt that an assigned seat is going to be worth the "risk" associated with the new "use it or lose it" policy.
Instead of "me tooing" U's policy, they could have grabbed a boatload of disenchanted U "elites" who have been told that their miles on non refundable tickets no longer apply to their elite status. I really think that if Crandall were there, he'd have gone for U and UAL's throats after they announced that policy. Hell, he might even have found the perfect opportunity to reintroduce value pricing. And it's unfortunate... American Airlines, who used to be a leader, has reduced themselves to being a "me too" airline.