Originally Posted by
JulesWinfield
There's lots of hourly workers who support the operation. Even cheap gas isn't "basically free". It costs money to operate an aircraft, outside of gas. There's time sensitive parts and inspections. A skeleton schedule is one thing, but airlines all of the US have been flying normal schedules for almost a week. We're just now getting to the point of winding down to the skeleton schedule.
There is a reason for that. If the flight is canceled all prior booking revenue has to be returned to the passengers. If the flight operates the airline keeps that revenue and the passengers may or may not be allowed to rebook to a later date. That is why airlines are slow to pull down flights but heading to May advance bookings will be much less of a factor.