Originally Posted by
Mayhemxpc
There has got to be more to the story that I don't know about. Otherwise United has been so exceptionally stupid that one will have to wonder about other aspects of their operations...like safety. A quick look on Travelocity shows that there are 32 flights from Chicago to Louisville every day. Some have an inconvenient stop. Southwest has another 4, with 2 departing after the last United flight out of ORD. So someone decided that the reputational damage to the airline was preferable than placing that aircrew on another airline, or even quick putting them on the EL to get to MDW. No matter how the situation would have turned out, even if Dr. Dao went happily, it was going to have reputation damage. When no one wanted to get off, the bad rep was certain. But somehow they were not able to figure out other options. Extrapolating from this, the airline seems to be unable to come up with other acceptable options when some undesirable event occurs.
WRT fare variances. I made a business trip to Europe last month. $1000 each way. Plane half empty. I am leaving again today -- same airline, same destination. $800 round trip and the plane is near full. I am trying to figure out the business model that leads to that.