The reductions details in the panel are applicable to a child who shares a room with two full-fare paying passengers.

America West also attracts fewer full-fare passengers: only about 5 percent, compared with about 10 percent for the bigger carriers.

The reason: rival carriers are willing to help out strike-bound passengers, but not at the expense of full-fare passengers.

The virtual boycott of Eastern by business travelers was devastating, because airlines rely on these full-fare passengers to make a profit.

If there's a delay, they should take full-fare passengers off the airplane and rebook them.

Now that privilege is reserved for full-fare passengers and frequent fliers.

But even these changes are geared more toward the full-fare passenger and frequent fliers.

It's not that they are extremely welcome in first class; airlines would love to fill those seats with full-fare passengers.

The bad news is that upgrades will be limited to full-fare passengers holding a ticket from the airline operating the flight.

United said its experiment was motivated by precisely that complaint from full-fare passengers in economy class.