Originally Posted by
fw90
He doesn’t get the only reason the airlines exist is for the credit cards. The psychological effect the points game has on consumers is baffling. Without the CC points system we wouldn’t have the same system at all.
Delta made 2 billion dollars just on credit card revenue q1 2025
2 billion. Paid to them by Amex. Amex revenue was 17 billion q1 2025.
there are people who’s sole job is selling how to maximize the points game to consumers.
scale is the only way to be successful. And not hiring **** gate agents.
This is exactly the problem with the industry at the moment. After years of consolidation all the small players have effectively been boxed out. The only way for smaller players to become legit competitors now is to scale up so they can play the CC game. You can’t play the CC game without scale and you can’t legitimately compete if you aren’t in the CC game. AA may have a few unprofitable quarters but no matter how poorly they are run they aren’t going anywhere. There is potentially a narrow path for NK or even SWA to take where they provide a slightly trimmed down version of what the legacies offer with good customer service and reliability. For SWA this shouldn’t be too difficult as they already have scale, they just need to tweak the product. For NK the big challenge here is executing the pivot while simultaneously finding a dance partner so they can scale and start legitimately trying to play the CC game.