Well, things like this did ultimately have an effect on airline frequent-flyer programs, primarily in that every program which offers status-based perks for reaching mileage totals now only considers mileage that comes from actually putting your butt on a plane (unofficially referred to as "BIS" -- for "butt-in-seat" miles, officially referred to as various terms depending on program, such as "elite-qualifying miles" with American Airlines).

And of course that also can be gamed through mileage runs, where you simply spend some time searching for cheap long-distance fares on the airline or one of its alliance partners, and use that to rack up extra qualifying miles. Which in turn has led to countermeasures from the airlines: ultra-discounted fares on partner airlines often earn only a tiny fraction of mileage flown, and two of the three US-based legacy carriers (Delta and United) now also have a minimum dollars-spent requirement in addition to the mileage-flown requirement.

Largely this is because the miles themselves, as an alternate way to purchase airline tickets, are not much of a hit, but the status perks are. Airlines do some interesting balancing acts in terms of wanting to attract people who fly a lot (and thus spend money on tickets) vs. not wanting to be so top-heavy with people entitled to free perks that you end up losing money on them.