[gfunk911]

My instinct is that if perks have gone down but prices have stayed the same, that means that prices would have gone up if we kept the perks.

The airlines are not making huge profits. In fact, they seem to file for bankruptcy constantly. Even though bankruptcy is sometimes a ploy to renegotiate union contracts, they are clearly not making big profits. So if the (overall) higher price is not going to profits, it's going to increased costs of some kind.