Why the Survival of the Airlines Depends on Frequent Flyer Programs

The element of surprise was critical. Other major airlines would have no choice but to match the program, but it would take them months to catch up, months in which American would have the entire field to itself. By having all the necessary Sabre programming written and debugged in advance, American would allow passengers to start accumulating mile

Meanwhile the endless computer studies at American had turned up another fascinating fact. Although American carried 25 million passengers a year, something like 40 percent of its business came from about 5 percent of its customers. There were that many repeat customers—“frequent fliers,” one might call them. Any incremental customer was welcome, o

To get long-lasting benefits from the United strike, American even set up folding tables at the airport to recruit United passengers as members of the American frequent-flier program.