It's only Don's opinion, but I think the rest of the major airlines - American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United- may follow National and US Air into chapter 11; if they do, you can probably wave goodbye to any frequent flier miles you have with them.

The discount airlines are making money (Southwest, Jet Blue, et al), and they are going after the cash cow of the majors: the business traveler. The big guys are hemorrhaging big time, and flying at way low capacity. Their only solution seems to be to go after the people who are still flying with them. In the last few weeks they've thrown out a flurry of charges they will levy if you are foolish enough to want to fly with them: $20 for a paper ticket (even if your travel agent writes it); $100 to change your itinerary prior to departure; if you have to cancel your travel plans, you can't apply the cost of a non-refundable ticket (any ticket discounted from their exorbitant full-fares, which are anywhere from $1500 to $2500 round trip from Salt Lake to anywhere in the Midwest or Eastern US) to any future travel unless you pay a $100 change fee and select dates of future travel before the scheduled time of departure of the trip you are canceling; and starting January 1, a $100 fee to fly standby (that's if you are scheduled to leave at a certain time and can leave earlier, so you want to be "on standby" for an earlier flight). These new fees are on top of the fuel surcharges and security fees they are already adding to ticket costs. The sad thing about all this is that foreign carriers are seeing this feeing frenzy and the message it is sending to customers - that they must pay for any accommodation the airline makes - as their opportunity to move in and get international travelers away from them. That's all they need! They've lost the domestic travelers to the discounters, who don't charge fees for changes, paper tickets, standbys, or for fuel or security. Now, they will surely lose international travelers to accommodating foreign-owned companies. How can they survive without chapter 11? I can't see how. Oh, and by the way, last week, US Airways announced they were no longer going to give frequent flier miles for nonrefundable tickets. "Nonrefundable" is airline-ese for a ticket that costs less than your first-born child to purchase - one that is discounted from the full-fare cost of a ticket you walk up and buy to take off today or tomorrow. Nobody who isn't spending someone else's money buys those anyway. And if US Air isn't giving frequent flier miles, will the others follow? Oh, and what do you think a bankruptcy judge will say about honoring frequent flier miles?

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