Some people here seem keen to suggest that the general public's insistence on cheap fares has somehow contributed to the misery suffered by underpaid, overworked pilots. This is very wide of the mark.
The problem isn't that airlines can't make money from increasingly tight customers. It's that whenever they do have any money they give it to shareholders instead of investing it in the workforce.
AA, for example, has announced a $2 billion buyback this year, which is to say that it's taken $2 billion of cash and given it straight to shareholders. Can any AA pilots confirm that the company is perfect and that this $2 billion is surplus to requirements?
All airlines, all big companies in fact, do the exact same thing these days. It doesn't matter how profitable the company is, costs are driven to the bone anyway to maximise the payout to shareholders.
Needless to say, management themselves invariably own lots of stock themselves—and using the company's cash to pay off shareholders also means that they can be assured of almost any pay rise they want. And financial engineering means that they can do this almost regardless of the health of the underlying business.
So let's put this to bed. It's not the customers' fault. Most folk are in exactly the same boat as pilots—employed by companies that exist solely to pay returns to shareholders, with employees viewed merely as a "human resource".
Indeed, this is why people understand and sympathise with striking pilots. It's not the public who want to see you downgraded.