you have a very generous view of the knowledge of the traveling public, particularly Frontier customers. In my experience, most regular people only have a vague sense of the mechanics of this industry and profession, let alone insight into what pilots are paid.

Do you really think the average Frontier customer would have a representative sense of historical ticket prices, and correlate that info with news pieces in an unfamiliar industry about a new Frontier pilot contract when booking their next trip?

Most people won't notice or care, but if the tickets go up too much they may as well fly basic on AA/DL/UA on a bigger/more reliable network with inflight wifi and a free soda.