Originally Posted by
BKbigfish
Basic economy does not make the legacies “a ton of money.” It retains leisure customers they would otherwise lose to the competition and simultaneously is putting said competition out of business. The legacies are not making money on the basic economy product. It’s a loss leader. They’re just able to offset the that loss with revenue from CC and premium products.
My understanding was that most vacation travel in general doesn't make legacies any money. It's business, international premium, and CC that generate profit. That's completely aside from BE seats, which are loss leaders. Haven't seen any hard numbers on that but it kind of tracks when you look at UA/DAL profits vs AA recently.