[PaulHoule]

If Google is practicing real financial controls it's the same.

Mainline airlines don't practice real financial controls so they can say "first class passengers subsidize coach passengers, otherwise we couldn't make a profit."

That is, they claim they can put together two unprofitable businesses (first class and economy) and somehow get a profitable business.

If it was a local restaurant that did this people would realize it was bogus, but make it a CEO who is also chairman of the board and people think "he gets paid 100,000x more than I do he must know what he is talking about".

All the airlines that do business that way have one thing in common: they usually lose money. Airlines that don't do business that way make money consistently (e.g. Southwest)

People are going to let American and Delta get away forever with the claim that they have no choice but to lumber forward with their broken business model and it just isn't true.