I echo those comments. Courtney is a solid, knowledgeable professional and would be a welcome addition to Mifnet. Michael Rurik Halaby, FRAeS
On 20 Sep 2025, at 05:24, Karl L. Swartz via Mifnet <mifnet@lists.mifnet.com> wrote:
Courtney is an amazing guy (not gal). His analytical skills are top-notch. I would wholeheartedly welcome his addition to Mifnet. I would be honored to sponsor and invite him if the group is amenable to doing so.
-- Karl
keady - should Courrtney wish, her post certainly indicates she would be a welcome addition to the Mifnet. Often though many of us just forward the subject material with our own viewpoint and await further discussion. Often we want to get the issue before mifnetters and not wait for further pros and cons from the writer. Unfair perhaps but it's not as though we are sending a critique into Aviation Week or whatever.
It would be nice if the critic stepped forward (and I'm praying it wasn't me) and acknowledged Courtneys rebuttals but in a sense we could move on.
Unrelated but I'm reminded of the adage "say anything you want about me but just spell my name right"
All,
Here's an unusual post. This email came to me by my LinkedIn account. I might have missed it amongst other LinkedIn traffic.
It's self-explanatory and worth reading.
The author asks that I share it as a response to a recent Mifnet thread. I hope that everyone knows that anyone disagreeing with a post is welcome to offer a response. Mifnet is shared more widely than we may assume.
DW
Hi David,
I was sent a note highlighting a message posted to Mifnet
attacking some work I recently published. Eventually, you'll anger
someone in this business, but that's life.
While I am not a member of Mifnet, I wanted to reach out to
you to offer a proper response to ensure the discussion is not
one-sided. The response is below. The post in question
was referencing Delta and Fetcher's AI model.
I don't know who posted the critique, and I respect the
discretion of Mifnet. Frankly, I don't want to know. I
only ask as a professional courtesy that you post my response to
defend my integrity, which was called into
question.
Many thanks for your help and work toward ensuring transparent
discussion and banter. Especially these days.
Best regards,
Courtney
RESPONSE=======================
What a strange and oddly angry
critique. I'm disappointed I haven't received any of the
angry emails to discuss before reading it on a forum, but such is
the state of banter and discourse today.
It was expected, though: I even
wrote about it in the section that appears to have been
skipped: "That said, this paper isn’t written
specifically for you. As you feel the urge to “well, actually,”
consider that explaining the concepts of recurring neural networks
and transformers to a population that interacts with all AI solely
through a browser chat window requires some
reduction."
Doesn't take machine learning to predict
that one. :)
Since we're in aviation and we do
everything in acronyms, I think the most elegant response is
RTFA. The responses to the critique were already offered in
the original paper.
1. Delta’s
2024 passenger revenue was $52 billion. Miller absurdly claims that
the Delta/Fletcherr “AI pricing” approach could increase revenue by
10% (“and could be higher than 10%”)...
From the paper: "The
AI company claims revenue improvements of 10% due to pricing
optimization from the model. We do not know if Delta is seeing the
claimed 10% in their test cases, but we do know the airline is
very, very satisfied with the results."
2. Miller describes the
Delta/Fletcherr “AI pricing” approach as “a revolution in ticket
pricing” but never defines (much less explains) any algorithmic
breakthrough versus traditional airline revenue
management...
From the paper: "This isn’t
revolutionary, in and of itself. As we will see, these types of
models have been used in airline revenue management departments for
decades. What is new is the integration of these models directly
into the pricing system."
3. ... He completely ignores the problem
that “AI” tools don’t make decisions and can’t support decisions
that aren’t following patterns thoroughly documented in the
training data.
From the paper: "While this is
a grossly oversimplified explanation of what Fetcherr’s model is
capable of achieving, it’s essential to note that it does not
surpass the theoretical capabilities of the old-school
paper-and-pencil regression model."
4. After
initially pounding the pricing revolution drum, Miller begins to
backtrack.
Just as a point of clarity on this
one: You can't backtrack within the same document.
That's not backtracking, that's called adding context and
nuance. Anyone who knows me knows how religiously I take
context and nuance in analysis. I accept the compliment,
despite it being delivered through a logical
fallacy.
The remainder of the critique point is
simply asking for confidential information from airlines that I
certainly won't reveal. The only thing I will say on
the matter is that many airlines have expressed frustration at
not having data available and normalized, including all airlines
mentioned in this report. That's not made up, as the poster
suggests. It's a very real challenge expressed by the most
sophisticated airlines, and it's current.
5.
...Miller makes insincere efforts to discredit critics of extreme
personalized pricing, claiming without citations that they said
Delta was planning to collect information about personal checking
accounts.
I think this point is critically and
dangerously overlooked by the internet poster. Although the
comments from the public are without any basis, they were still
made. This is critical in appreciating the context from which
the intended reader is likely approaching this paper, and how
different it is from that of the poster. These were precisely
the questions I was receiving from CEOs of aviation and investment
companies, leading to the writing of the paper. It is a silly
notion, AND people believe it. I'm not certain of the origins
of the poster, but it may be a simple matter of not appreciating
the proliferation of misinformation in the United States. You
can't just wish it away, and addressing it certainly isn't being
"insincere."
I'm also not certain where the
poster read that there was any suggestion that Delta was ever
planning to use any personal data. In fact, it was made
explicitly clear that Delta was never planning to do any of
this. This was a key tenet of the paper.
From the paper: "This is not
how AI models work and is certainly not how Delta and Fetcherr’s
model works"
I don't know, like I said, it was a very
strange note to read on a Friday morning. I'm not normally in
the business of responding to disengenuous forum posts, but
I'm also not in the business of allowing such
disengenuous credibility attacks to go
unanswered.
I'd classify this as "missing the forest
for the trees." I explicitly set the context for who
this paper was written for and that it shouldn't be used by revenue
management professionals to say "well, actually" to further their
own careers. And yet...
But, I will express my disappointment in
the disingenuous nature in which the paper was clearly
read. It appears to have been taken personally,
somehow. Perhaps someone forwarded the paper to the poster
with a nasty note? Was it sent to them, suggesting it was an
academic paper written for researchers and not non-technical
aviation leaders? There must be some angry conversation or
context beyond this paper from which the poster is
responding. It happens. I get
it.
There are a few things I would have done
to improve this paper, but funnily enough, the poster didn't
mention any of them. I reserve those for the many discussions
I have with the intended audience.
Chances are, this poster knows more than
I do about revenue management and pricing. Cool. I'm
not positioning myself as an expert. I don't compete with RM
professionals. There is no advertisement, because I don't
advise airlines on pricing strategies for money. It's
literally a free paper put out into the public discourse. The
paper is written from the perspective of an inquisitive
teacher and provider of context to those asking questions and the
aviation public as a whole. Those who do know me know
integrity and the desire for "oh wow, I never thought of that"
drives my work - never "well, actually." The forum post,
unfortunately, entirely disregarded this context.
I do include my email on every analysis
or presentation published. I received nothing. I
get things wrong, and banter and discussion are welcomed - even
solicited. I make it a point to present my findings in a
non-combative manner, with the intention of finding answers rather
than suggesting mine are the only ones that should be
considered. I don't expect all responses to match the
same tone, but I do expect the responses to include me,
particularly if there are any explicit attacks on my
credibility. Integrity is NOT something I
take lightly.
And yet, through all of the responses to
points made from well outside the context of the paper, the
critique betrayed a key oversight that I had expected and hoped to
catch early:
"If you’re in data science or airline
revenue management, none of this will be new to you. However,
you’ll find important context in this paper for how the rest of the
industry thinks. This is a bridge between the neural networks
in which you’ve been living the past few decades and the neurons of
the millions of human beings who work or travel in the commercial
airline industry.
AI means the same thing to most people:
ChatGPT. We believe understanding this misunderstanding
is incredibly valuable for present and future data
scientists.
That said, this paper isn’t written specifically for you. As
you feel the urge to “well, actually,” consider that explaining the
concepts of recurring neural networks and transformers to a
population that interacts with all AI solely through a browser chat
window requires some reduction.
Then consider that these
same people are the ones with all the money."
It is very easy to descend into our own
world of working with detailed models and become disconnected from
the rest of the world. Regardless of the models, it still all
comes down to human behavior - weird, irrational
human behavior. For the intended audience, the paper
delivered a conclusion.
However, for the long-time professionals
who think they've seen it all and have nothing to learn from how
the rest of the world approaches learning a complex topic, a
separate conclusion was explicitly offered: Understanding
this irrationality IS the point.
That point was missed.
Next time, just email me. Email
address is always in the document.
Courtney
Visual Approach
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