i had always thought given the analysis that the state of NC did on air travel, that it would be hard for them to recruit and retain the frequent business flyer which of course is the bread and butter. cheap leisure seats I am told was always suppose to incrementally increase an airline's revenue.

So here it looks like they totally segmented a market that didn't exist and then found through whatever problems and the economy that they couldn't grow revenue, because this group ran out of money to spend.

this phenomenom to me is similar to a new culture on the web. they're called freecycle groups. you sign up and people list junk to pick up for free and stuff they want for freee. in your city you just respond and go get it. it would follow that with limited discretionary income for this group that "likes a bargain" that they would end up being maybe one time customers or we'll do that next year.

how do you grow revenue when the whole model has to depend on recruiting entirely new customers every single flight?