Let me try to understand. Your previous post was written asa reply to what I’d
posted about your paper on the 19th. But youincluded a criticism about
conflating ChatGDP with AI that had nothing to dowith anything I’d written on
the 19th. Ok, whatever.
But I have to seriously question your demand that I “keepit professional.” My
post of the 24th directly challenged theprofessionalism of your attacks that I
was “angry”, “disingenuous” “appears tohave been taken personally, somehow.Â
Perhaps someone forwarded the paper to the poster with a nasty note?”and
because I had impugned your integrity, and failing to link those attacks
toanything I’d actually written. And your latest post now insists that I
wasincapable of understanding what I’d read.
I am absolutely certain that no one on the Mifnet has anyinterest in a pissing
match. Past pissing matches badly undermined the Mifnet’sability to support
respectful discussion about important industry issues. But Ithink the
Mifnetters who hate pissing matches can also appreciate my frustrationdealing
with someone who demands everyone else observe strict professionalstandards
while feeling free to blatantly violate them himself.Â
Once again, let me try to refocus this on the three questionscritical to the
previous Mifnet discussion of Delta’s use of “AI pricing”.Â
Is the Delta/Fletcherr project designed to facilitate firstdegree price
discrimination? Your article totally evaded the question, and youblew off my
two requests for clarification. What are the major shortcomingswith
longstanding Delta RM that the Fletcherr project will solve? You can’tcite
anything of significance but insist we accept your assertion that impactswill
be huge. Do you have any supporting evidence for your paper’s claim thatit is
reasonable to expect that Delta could achieve $5 billion annual
revenueincreases from the Fletcherr project? I argued that a claim that Delta
waslikely to achieve the biggest near-term revenue improvement in history
wasn’tcredible. You’ve blown off two requests to justify this claim.
Myconcern with your paper was that it didn’t help Mifnetters understand
thoseissues, and you willfully ignored my invitation to explain/clarify your
views. If you have no desire to provide the Mifnet withsubstantive, respectful
answers to those questions, just say so and then we can move on.
On Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 02:43:12 PM MST, Hubert Horan
<[email protected]> wrote:
Let me try to understand. Your previous post was written asa reply to what I’d
posted about your paper on the 19th. But youincluded a criticism about
conflating ChatGDP with AI that had nothing to dowith anything I’d written on
the 19th. Ok, whatever.
But I have to seriously question your demand that I “keepit professional.” My
post of the 24th directly challenged theprofessionalism of your attacks that I
was “angry”, “disingenuous” “appears tohave been taken personally, somehow.Â
Perhaps someone forwarded the paper to the poster with a nasty note?”and
because I had impugned your integrity, and failing to link those attacks
toanything I’d actually written. And your latest post now insists that I
wasincapable of understanding what I’d read.
I am absolutely certain that no one on the Mifnet has anyinterest in a pissing
match. Past pissing matches badly undermined the Mifnet’sability to support
respectful discussion about important industry issues. But Ithink the
Mifnetters who hate pissing matches can also appreciate my frustrationdealing
with someone who demands everyone else observe strict professionalstandards
while feeling free to blatantly violate them himself.Â
Once again, let me try to refocus this on the three questionscritical to the
previous Mifnet discussion of Delta’s use of “AI pricing”.Â
Is the Delta/Fletcherr project designed to facilitate firstdegree price
discrimination? Your article totally evaded the question, and youblew off my
two requests for clarification. What are the major shortcomingswith
longstanding Delta RM that the Fletcherr project will solve? You can’tcite
anything of significance but insist we accept your assertion that impactswill
be huge. Do you have any supporting evidence for your paper’s claim thatit is
reasonable to expect that Delta could achieve $5 billion annual
revenueincreases from the Fletcherr project? I argued that a claim that Delta
waslikely to achieve the biggest near-term revenue improvement in history
wasn’tcredible. You’ve blown off two requests to justify this claim.
Myconcern with your paper was that it didn’t help Mifnetters understand
thoseissues, and you willfully ignored my invitation to explain/clarify your
views. If you have no desire to provide the Mifnet withsubstantive, respectful
answers to those questions, just say so and then we can move on.
On Friday, September 26, 2025 at 05:10:24 AM MST, Courtney Miller
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hubert,
It appears there is some confusion. I certainly never suggested that YOU were
one to conflate AI with ChatGPT. I was referring to the reader for whom the
paper was written (by many of their own admissions). Certainly no offense
intended, and I understand how that would be insulting, but it's a simple
misunderstanding.
If you reread the response, I think you'll find that misunderstanding to be
easily resolved. Â
But, if that simple quote was somehow mis-interpreted as a personal insult, how
much of the original response was due to the same mis-reading? Â
In the end, it doesn't matter. My only ask is that you pause to make sure you
understand what you're reading and in what context before you publicly
pronounce someone else's work as "a useless load of hot air" and that it
"provides absolutely no value."Â Â
Keep it professional.
Courtney
On Tue, Sep 23, 2025 at 1:29 PM Hubert Horan via Mifnet
<[email protected]> wrote:
Sorry for delayed response I have been riding trains inCentral and South Asia.
I am emailing this response to you at the same time Iam posting it on Mifnet
My 19 Sep post was in the context of a Mifnet discussionthat began in July that
had been provoked by industry press reports that GlenHauenstein had told
investors that Delta expected major returns from itsongoing project to have
“artificial intelligence” set prices. My original Julypost suggested that if
Hauenstein’s claims could be confirmed this could be oneof the biggest stories
in aviation, we need to figure out what’s actually goingon. The July discussion
focused on three questions:
1. Was the Delta/Fletcherr “AI” project designed to giveDelta the ability to
implement first-degree price discrimination (whether implemented now or in the
future) so thatindividuals making identical pricing requests at the same point
in time mightbe shown different prices based on Delta’ perceptions of their
price elasticity?
2. What exactly did Hauenstein mean when he said AI wouldset Delta prices? What
would Large Language Model/Generative AI pricing dodifferently than Delta’
longstanding PYM processes? Was Delta expecting “AI” tomake marginal
improvements to its longstanding RM function or significantlytransform them? If
the latter, what major RM shortcomings would “AI” solve?What totally new
capabilities would “AI price setting” introduce?
3. In order of magnitude terms, were the revenue gains fromintroducing “AI
pricing” likely to be incremental/useful or huge/competitivelypowerful? Was
increased revenue from first-degree price discrimination animportant part of
the reason for Hauenstein’s optimism with his investors?
Â
Neither Delta’s public statements nor subsequent presscoverage provided clear
answers to these questions. Subsequent Delta statementsimplied they don’t
intend to introduce first-degree price discrimination, but theyhaven’t ruled it
out in the future and have made no effort to demonstrate that thebig gains
Hauenstein is promising investors come from sources other than
first-degreeprice discrimination. Â Again, the commentfrom Senator Gallego who
thinks Hauenstein is either lying to his investors(about huge potential gains)
or to Congress (about disavowing first-degreeprice discrimination).
The subsequent Mifnet discussion recognized that any effortto implement
first-degree price discrimination would be a huge industry issuebut would face
a variety of challenges. While we could speculate, no one seemedable to
confidently answer the three questions.
Once Ronell distributed your paper, the question for theMifnet discussion was
whether it helped answer the three questions. I stand bywhat I told the Mifnet
on the 19th—no it didn’t, and I providedexplanations with direct quotes
justifying that conclusion. Your response notonly failed to clarify how you
would answer the three questions but ignoredalmost all the evidence I presented
demonstrating that you didn’t have clear answersto those questions.
Will the AI project enable first-degree pricediscrimination? Biggest question
of all. We all know airlines have long hadaccess to lots of “personal
information.” But is the Delta/Fletcherr projectdesigned to change the use this
information so Delta can show different pricesto different customers? Your
paper ignored this, and when I highlighted it inmy post of the 19th you ignored
it again. Your paper misrepresentedpublic concerns about the use of
anti-competitive market power in order tocapture consumer surplus as concerns
about data privacy. Your response ignored my objection that thesingle quote
from a Georgia TV station you used to represent the backlash toHauenstein’s
statements similarly misrepresented the industry/public debateover first-degree
price discrimination.
Will AI drive major, dramatic changes to Delta RM, andif so how? No one could
read your paper without missing your Very StrongImplications that this is a
Really Big Deal. Your paper used the wordsrevolution/revolutionary ten times.
Delta/Fletcherr “have begun to automateairline pricing.” As I said on the 19th,
any RM function can beimproved, but your response ignored my stated concern
that all of theimprovements your paper cited sounded like things airline RM has
been doing foryears and fall well short of things one could call revolutionary.
Delta airlinepricing isn’t currently automated? Airlines are incapable of
implementing theirRM models? Airline data isn’t properly warehoused? I invited
you to offerconcrete illustrations of major Delta RM shortcomings that the AI
project couldfix; your reply failed to offer any, much less ones that could be
consideredrevolutionary.
Is Delta’s introduction of “AI pricing” something withthe potential to
massively increase revenue and disrupt industry competition?No one could read
your paper without missing your Very Strong Implications thatthis will have
Really Huge Benefits.  Delta/Fletcherr “AI pricing” approach could
increaserevenue by 10%, could be higher than 10%, and Delta’ competitors are
ceding abig revenue advantage by failing to adopt the Delta/Fletcherr approach.
You ignored my objection that this potential wasn’tqualified in any way and if
taken at face value would produce the biggestprofit gain in industry history.
You then insisted that the existence ofuncertainty meant you could ignore my
objection that you hadn’t provided thedetailed concrete examples that a
conclusion this powerful would normallywarrant or explained why major airlines
like Delta were unable to achieve themin the past.
The AI company claimsrevenue improvements of 10% due to pricing optimization
from the model. We donot know if Delta is seeing the claimed 10% in their test
cases, but we do knowthe airline is very, very satisfied with the results."
You were the author of this paper. By endorsing Fletcherr’sspecific 10% claim
and Delta’s very satisfied comment you are clearly tellingyour readers that you
believe gains of this magnitude are highly plausible. Ofcourse Delta hasn’t
publicly committed to specific improvement targets. Thatfact isn’t “adding
context and nuance”. It is trying to avoid accountabilityfor the findings and
opinions you’ve presented and trying to blow off requeststhat the findings and
opinions you present be properly substantiated.
Now if Delta/Fletcherr are really focused on creating afirst-degree price
discrimination system perhaps adjectives like revolutionaryand claims of $5
billion annual revenue gains might become a bit more plausible.The Mifnet (and
a great deal of other industry) discussion is trying to figureout if that’s
what happening. But your paper steadfastly refused to address theissue and
refused to offer any explanation of how revolutionary/multi-billion-
dollarimprovements could be possible, if Delta was being fully honest when it
toldCongress that it had no intention of introducing first-degree
pricediscrimination.
There was nothing in your response that claimed thatanything I’d said on the
19th was factually wrong or could bechallenged using public evidence. Instead
it focused on a lot of emotionalpoints that frankly don’t make much sense.
You were “disappointed” you hadn’t received my comments inadvance. Your
published paper was not published at a discussion forum and didnot specifically
invite comments. As you said, your paper was offered as acontribution to
industry discussion and that’s how it was taken when Ronelldistributed it to
Mifnet participants. Mifnet participants comment on lots ofexternal comments
about industry issues.
I recognize that you were not directly involved when theMifnet first discussed
the three questions about the Delta/Fletchrr approach,but I don’t see how
anyone could discuss anything related to airline AI pricingwithout considering
them. You complained that your paper said it wasn’taddressed to experts in data
science but I’m not aware of anyone on the Mifnetwho is on the cutting edge of
data science and nothing in my post involved datascience issues. Your complaint
of objections coming from people who conflate“artificial intelligence” with
ChatGPT assisted internet searches is strawmanningand a bit insulting.
You claimed my post was “angry”,“disingenuous” “appears to have been taken
personally, somehow. Perhaps someone forwarded the paper to theposter with a
nasty note?” and was an attack on your integrity. None of theseemotional
comments referred to any specific thing I’d written and I found theseaspects of
your reply unwarranted and totally unprofessional.
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