Keeping planes full with out breaking even does nothing long term for the employee or the company. It makes our credit rating go down, our need for credit go up, our interest on the credit go up, our liquidity position go down, and the commitment of our revenue to interest payments go up. Basically it is a one way road if we do not come up with a sustainable business plan that pays people what they are worth, and provide what the customer expects for the service we provide.

We need to charge more, pay more and in the end the ridership will go down, some will lose their jobs, and as the customer is reeducated to the costs associated with this industry and what it means to use it, the jobs will come back, service will go up, and the wages of the industires employees will return.
It takes pain frist, and no one is willing to do that. Many airlines start with the notion of shrinking to profitability but other airlines either fall short of the capacity cuts or the price increases, bringing the whole gaggle down.
Until we can have rational pricing and expectations of the product the airline industry provides, and reeducate the consumer we will all just muddle along going to lower lows. We will be allowed to continue to the commerce of the world to continue, and the countless corporations that make a killing feeding of the airlines corpse.

This can be fixed many ways, and one way we the pilots can do this is to not play along with the lower low mentality and the need for paycuts et al. I am a student of economics and business forces. I understand the fact that there is elasticity of demand. I understand the need to cover static costs, and managers need to cut the variable costs. We happen to be one of the easiest ones to cut, but we must say enough is enough. We must make our bosses boss realize that we will negotiate what we are worth, and have expectations much like the customers we serve.