American Airlines recently charged me several hundred dollars to cancel the outbound leg of a non-stop, round-trip flight to New York. If I had simply not shown up for the flight, they were going to cancel my return flight to Knoxville. I had to pay $700 to not take the Knoxville-to-NY flight, just so I could still fly back to Knoxville. A customer disservice agent assured me that I had agreed to these conditions when I originally purchased my ticket, although she was unable to direct me to that portion of the ticket purchase process. Two weeks earlier, another airline moved me from an exit row (for which I paid extra) – and never informed me until I discovered it as I boarded.

I didn’t want my $25 refunded; I wanted a seat that didn’t require me to shove my knees into hard plastic for 2 hours.

For an industry that doesn’t have the best economics, how does the airline industry get away with treating customers in ways that would be unthinkable in almost any other sector?

Occasionally, some unlucky passenger’s viral video will document a seemingly airline mishap, sparking public outrage and calls to boycott Airline X. But two weeks later, everyone has forgotten which airline they are supposed to hate, and they just go back to selecting the airline that offers the cheapest fare.

Jeffrey Wong, a professor at the University of Nevada says that bad airline service persists because it is profitable. Wong looked at the correlations between overbooked flights, customer satisfaction scores, and profitability. He found that airline profitability shows no correlation with customer pleasure. Instead, profitability is a function of load factor – that is, how many people can they squeeze onto each plane – which is one cause of customer dissatisfaction.

But perhaps airlines aren’t in the passenger business at all. They make a significant portion – and in some cases all – of their profit from their credit card partnerships and operations.

For example, in 2023, Delta Airlines had total passenger revenue of $49 billion, less than their total operating expenses of $52.5 billion. The company lost money on its flight operations, yet somehow still reported a profit of more than $4 billion. How? By earning almost $7 billion from its partnership with American Express.

The airline industry isn’t in the business of providing travelers with great experiences. It is in the business of selling frequent flier miles and credit cards. It doesn’t prioritize passenger service because the passengers aren’t its customers; the credit card companies are.

This is just my theory; if you have your own theory or disagree with mine, I would love to hear from you. The industry perplexes me.

David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. A version of this piece originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.