thanks for the replies. I was wondering if less competition kept the seat/mile cost up, which may be the case cf to here, but not significantly so. US Air has to get theirs down from 10 to 8 cents/mile to be competitive with Southwest which is currently running on 6 cents/mile. The LLC's are bringing wages down to 58k for left seat on the 170's and the race to the bottom continues.... Anyway the weathers great the industry is going down the gurgler, hope it has a brighter outlook down under.