Herein lies one major problem. Due to connecting traffic, I would submit many airlines, and in particular US, have no clear way to determine if a particular route and/or city is profitable or unprofitable. And, does dropping the connecting traffic coming from an unprofitable route then make other routes unprofitable, resulting in an ever downward spiral (part of the 'you can shrink into profitability' mantra)? It's a tough analysis and I don't really think US has a good handle on it (well, it's clear they don't). Up until about 2-3 years ago, they just priced the possibly unprofitable cities to be profitable, and folks were paying those fares. Now that game has changed, which has led to the mess we're now in.
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