[yourapostasy]

The ceiling on compensation to pax is $10,850, based upon a quick quote I got from executivejetmanagement.com for booking a 7 pax small jet in the next 3 hours, ORD-SDF. They quoted me a range $7,590 - $10,850, so this is the worst-case scenario.

So UA's policy is possibly based upon a "stay below some non-market-related amount" internal goal versus recognizing that they were throwing away perfectly useful pricing signals every time they enacted these kinds of policies. If they reached $2712.50 per seat for those four deadheading crew members in the auction with no takers (highly unlikely), then that is not just signaling it is cheaper to charter a private jet, but also signals pricing information to inform their route planning and marketing teams.

I see this all the time in business when helping clients implement their policies into software. There are often policies set for what amounts to someone with policy making power within the organization trying to game the metrics they are compensated by, and it ends up blinding the company to valuable market information that they then turn around to spend a minor fortune upon obtaining a very low-fidelity equivalent in lengthy, futile sales and marketing efforts.