A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Delta was the "Official Airline of Disney World". We had a whole bunch of L1011's and 767-300's flying FULL, 5 flights a day, from BOS and NYC into MCO. Oh, we also had International flying out of MCO, to LGW and FRA, maybe Paris too, I can't remember as I was a domestic BOS 757puke at the time, but trust me, we OWNED Orlando...and Tampa, and Miami, and Ft. Lauderdale, and Palm Beach. We flew full L1011's and 767's from NYC and BOS to all the Major FL cities, 5 flights a day to each. Oh, and we also flew them from FL up to Montreal, full all summer.

This was before Jet Blew and Air Tran of course, oh, and nobody east of DFW had ever heard of SWA...

Then came Mo'Ron and his Project 7.5 (his CASM metric). He decided we needed to put only the 737-200's (Express) with ZERO first class seats, on those routes, and that basically pushed all our HVC's to American and US Air, who still offered a First Class upgrade for the Business traveler.

At In Command Class, I asked LEO the CEO why we ran away from the Florida market and gave it all to Jet Blue and Air Tran. He said, "Those are low yeild customers, they are families going on vacation, and they shop online for the cheapest tickets, so there's really no money in servicing them."

You may recall, it was Leo's idea to sell our tickets on Priceline, some as cheap as $20 if they were last minute sales. I once was non-reving up to BOS on an Express 737, and there was another pax who, when we got to BOS, didn't get off the airplane. I was about last off, so I heard the F/A's ask him, "Aren't you going to get off?"

He said, "No, I'm flying back to Orlando, so I'll just stay on." He then explained to her that he had bought a round trip ticket on Priceline for about $50, and he was only doing the round trip to put more Sky Miles into his account, which would put him into the Platinum level...and that would give him free upgrades on his future mainline business travel.

Brilliant strategy that Priceline thing there Leo!