<story><title>How the Airlines Became Cartels</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/opinion/how-the-airlines-became-abusive-cartels.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ashark</author><text>First: thanks for the link, interesting to know that there&amp;#x27;s kind-of something out there for this.&lt;p&gt;From the FAQ on the linked page:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Who can purchase Economy Plus seating?
All customers who are not traveling on a Basic Economy ticket may purchase Economy Plus seating subject to availability. Advance complimentary access to Economy Plus is available to Premier® Platinum members and higher (for themselves and up to eight companions), and Premier Gold members (for themselves and one companion). Premier Silver members and one companion enjoy complimentary access to Economy Plus seating, when available, upon check-in.&lt;p&gt;I just... what is this even? How about just putting the legroom on ticket sale data—including for sales on 3rd party sites—and selling different ones at different prices? I don&amp;#x27;t want to become an expert on all this weird tricking-you-into-spending-more-money-with-us-than-you-should-if-you&amp;#x27;re-not-super-careful crap for every airline I might fly with, I just want to buy a ticket and fly every now and then, and I&amp;#x27;m willing to pay for more legroom. How would I even begin to comparison shop for this upgrade vs. other airlines? I know the answer is &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re not supposed to because they&amp;#x27;re trying to screw you&amp;quot; but that&amp;#x27;s an awful answer.&lt;p&gt;This is precisely where regulation is useful: transparency in WTF you&amp;#x27;re buying and standards in how it&amp;#x27;s presented &lt;i&gt;so competition can work its magic&lt;/i&gt; without consumers having to learn a bunch of otherwise-useless junk (the worst of which is &amp;quot;how to navigate systems and jargon that are specific to one vendor&amp;quot;) in order to confidently make a simple transaction.</text></item><item><author>maxerickson</author><text>United calls that &amp;quot;Economy Plus&amp;quot;. Not sure the price structure matches what you say:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.united.com&amp;#x2F;CMS&amp;#x2F;en-US&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;travelproducts&amp;#x2F;Pages&amp;#x2F;EconomyPlus.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.united.com&amp;#x2F;CMS&amp;#x2F;en-US&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;travelproducts&amp;#x2F;Pag...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exit row seats are also often first available to members of various frequent flyer programs and usually have a modest amount of extra legroom.</text></item><item><author>ashark</author><text>Seriously, show me where I can pay an almost-reasonable (say, 10-15%) upgrade fee for 3-4&amp;quot; more legroom over whatever the lowest is they can get away with (so, what they actually use in economy ordinarily) and I&amp;#x27;ll pay it &lt;i&gt;every single time&lt;/i&gt; I fly, and I&amp;#x27;m not even &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; tall. AFAIK leg room and other space considerations aren&amp;#x27;t even presented to me when shopping for tickets, but too little of it is my #1 complaint about flying, which is saying something because most things about flying are complaint-worthy.</text></item><item><author>closeparen</author><text>But we aren&amp;#x27;t given the option to pay a proportionally higher fare for proportionally higher quality. Higher fare classes aren&amp;#x27;t +20%, +30%, they&amp;#x27;re 3x, 4x, 10x.&lt;p&gt;There are &amp;quot;I only shop on price&amp;quot; seats and &amp;quot;money is no object&amp;quot; seats. I wish we had more of a middle, beyond the usual +$150 for an exit row or +$100 for a regular economy seat, but in the forward half of the plane.</text></item><item><author>mikeash</author><text>As usual, people don&amp;#x27;t know their own desires.&lt;p&gt;Ask people what makes them choose an airline and they&amp;#x27;ll probably tell you a tale about reputation, service, legroom, amenities, what have you.&lt;p&gt;Now stick them in front of a computer and tell them to buy a ticket with their own money and watch them pick the cheapest option regardless of the rest.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a race to the bottom because that&amp;#x27;s what people really want. When the rubber meets the road, most people &lt;i&gt;want&lt;/i&gt; a horrible, cheap experience.&lt;p&gt;Why do airlines overbook flights? Because people would rather save $5 with a chance of being bumped than pay a little extra.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, we&amp;#x27;d all love direct flights with sixteen feet of legroom, a hundred free checked bags, gourmet meals, free access to a library of every movie and TV show ever made, and for a price of $3.50. But that&amp;#x27;s not going to happen, because amenities cost money. When we&amp;#x27;re faced with the tradeoff, we favor low prices.&lt;p&gt;Once I truly realized this, I became a lot less annoyed with many airline shenanigans. Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s pretty annoying that as a tall guy I barely fit into the seat. But it&amp;#x27;s what I paid for. If it was &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; important to me, I could pay extra for more space. I don&amp;#x27;t, because, like most people, I prefer cheapness above all else.&lt;p&gt;You can get a much nicer experience if you pay for it. If you don&amp;#x27;t feel like paying for it, then what are you complaining about?&lt;p&gt;Not particularly related, but this line from the article caught my eye:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It makes no sense to allow airlines to charge an astronomical fare just because a flight is nearly full, and a dirt-cheap fare for an advance booking.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;What planet is this guy from? Of course it makes sense to charge high fares for a scarce product in high demand, and low fares for an abundant product in low demand.</text></item><item><author>joelrunyon</author><text>Southwest has a fundamentally different business model involving standardized fleet sizes &amp;amp; limited routing. Plus, if he&amp;#x27;s complaining about stopovers + layovers, Southwest has these on almost every flight.&lt;p&gt;He&amp;#x27;s stating a lot of things that &lt;i&gt;would&lt;/i&gt; be nice, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people still fly Spirit Airlines - despite their constant low ratings - because it&amp;#x27;s costs $50 bucks.&lt;p&gt;The real discussion should be about fare transparency as a bunch of airlines are rolling out basic economy fares that don&amp;#x27;t include food, limit space even further and don&amp;#x27;t accrue points, etc. Instead of making a new, nicer tier class, they&amp;#x27;re taking away items from the basic economy fares and maintaining the same pricing.[1][2]&lt;p&gt;The fact that none of these pieces are talking about this makes me think these are outrage opinion articles by talking heads rather than people who regularly fly&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;is-basic-economy-really-a-deal&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;is-basic-economy-really-a-d...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;united-selling-basic-economy&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;united-selling-basic-econom...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeash</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think we need more regulation here. All of this information is discoverable without a huge amount of effort. Third-party aggregators may not make it obvious, but that&amp;#x27;s their fault, not the airlines&amp;#x27;. That the aggregators don&amp;#x27;t bother showing this info either means they&amp;#x27;re ignoring an important market segment (in which case, business opportunity for you!) or few people care about this stuff.</text></comment>
<story><title>How the Airlines Became Cartels</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/opinion/how-the-airlines-became-abusive-cartels.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ashark</author><text>First: thanks for the link, interesting to know that there&amp;#x27;s kind-of something out there for this.&lt;p&gt;From the FAQ on the linked page:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Who can purchase Economy Plus seating?
All customers who are not traveling on a Basic Economy ticket may purchase Economy Plus seating subject to availability. Advance complimentary access to Economy Plus is available to Premier® Platinum members and higher (for themselves and up to eight companions), and Premier Gold members (for themselves and one companion). Premier Silver members and one companion enjoy complimentary access to Economy Plus seating, when available, upon check-in.&lt;p&gt;I just... what is this even? How about just putting the legroom on ticket sale data—including for sales on 3rd party sites—and selling different ones at different prices? I don&amp;#x27;t want to become an expert on all this weird tricking-you-into-spending-more-money-with-us-than-you-should-if-you&amp;#x27;re-not-super-careful crap for every airline I might fly with, I just want to buy a ticket and fly every now and then, and I&amp;#x27;m willing to pay for more legroom. How would I even begin to comparison shop for this upgrade vs. other airlines? I know the answer is &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re not supposed to because they&amp;#x27;re trying to screw you&amp;quot; but that&amp;#x27;s an awful answer.&lt;p&gt;This is precisely where regulation is useful: transparency in WTF you&amp;#x27;re buying and standards in how it&amp;#x27;s presented &lt;i&gt;so competition can work its magic&lt;/i&gt; without consumers having to learn a bunch of otherwise-useless junk (the worst of which is &amp;quot;how to navigate systems and jargon that are specific to one vendor&amp;quot;) in order to confidently make a simple transaction.</text></item><item><author>maxerickson</author><text>United calls that &amp;quot;Economy Plus&amp;quot;. Not sure the price structure matches what you say:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.united.com&amp;#x2F;CMS&amp;#x2F;en-US&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;travelproducts&amp;#x2F;Pages&amp;#x2F;EconomyPlus.aspx&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.united.com&amp;#x2F;CMS&amp;#x2F;en-US&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;travelproducts&amp;#x2F;Pag...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Exit row seats are also often first available to members of various frequent flyer programs and usually have a modest amount of extra legroom.</text></item><item><author>ashark</author><text>Seriously, show me where I can pay an almost-reasonable (say, 10-15%) upgrade fee for 3-4&amp;quot; more legroom over whatever the lowest is they can get away with (so, what they actually use in economy ordinarily) and I&amp;#x27;ll pay it &lt;i&gt;every single time&lt;/i&gt; I fly, and I&amp;#x27;m not even &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; tall. AFAIK leg room and other space considerations aren&amp;#x27;t even presented to me when shopping for tickets, but too little of it is my #1 complaint about flying, which is saying something because most things about flying are complaint-worthy.</text></item><item><author>closeparen</author><text>But we aren&amp;#x27;t given the option to pay a proportionally higher fare for proportionally higher quality. Higher fare classes aren&amp;#x27;t +20%, +30%, they&amp;#x27;re 3x, 4x, 10x.&lt;p&gt;There are &amp;quot;I only shop on price&amp;quot; seats and &amp;quot;money is no object&amp;quot; seats. I wish we had more of a middle, beyond the usual +$150 for an exit row or +$100 for a regular economy seat, but in the forward half of the plane.</text></item><item><author>mikeash</author><text>As usual, people don&amp;#x27;t know their own desires.&lt;p&gt;Ask people what makes them choose an airline and they&amp;#x27;ll probably tell you a tale about reputation, service, legroom, amenities, what have you.&lt;p&gt;Now stick them in front of a computer and tell them to buy a ticket with their own money and watch them pick the cheapest option regardless of the rest.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a race to the bottom because that&amp;#x27;s what people really want. When the rubber meets the road, most people &lt;i&gt;want&lt;/i&gt; a horrible, cheap experience.&lt;p&gt;Why do airlines overbook flights? Because people would rather save $5 with a chance of being bumped than pay a little extra.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, we&amp;#x27;d all love direct flights with sixteen feet of legroom, a hundred free checked bags, gourmet meals, free access to a library of every movie and TV show ever made, and for a price of $3.50. But that&amp;#x27;s not going to happen, because amenities cost money. When we&amp;#x27;re faced with the tradeoff, we favor low prices.&lt;p&gt;Once I truly realized this, I became a lot less annoyed with many airline shenanigans. Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s pretty annoying that as a tall guy I barely fit into the seat. But it&amp;#x27;s what I paid for. If it was &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; important to me, I could pay extra for more space. I don&amp;#x27;t, because, like most people, I prefer cheapness above all else.&lt;p&gt;You can get a much nicer experience if you pay for it. If you don&amp;#x27;t feel like paying for it, then what are you complaining about?&lt;p&gt;Not particularly related, but this line from the article caught my eye:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;It makes no sense to allow airlines to charge an astronomical fare just because a flight is nearly full, and a dirt-cheap fare for an advance booking.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;What planet is this guy from? Of course it makes sense to charge high fares for a scarce product in high demand, and low fares for an abundant product in low demand.</text></item><item><author>joelrunyon</author><text>Southwest has a fundamentally different business model involving standardized fleet sizes &amp;amp; limited routing. Plus, if he&amp;#x27;s complaining about stopovers + layovers, Southwest has these on almost every flight.&lt;p&gt;He&amp;#x27;s stating a lot of things that &lt;i&gt;would&lt;/i&gt; be nice, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people still fly Spirit Airlines - despite their constant low ratings - because it&amp;#x27;s costs $50 bucks.&lt;p&gt;The real discussion should be about fare transparency as a bunch of airlines are rolling out basic economy fares that don&amp;#x27;t include food, limit space even further and don&amp;#x27;t accrue points, etc. Instead of making a new, nicer tier class, they&amp;#x27;re taking away items from the basic economy fares and maintaining the same pricing.[1][2]&lt;p&gt;The fact that none of these pieces are talking about this makes me think these are outrage opinion articles by talking heads rather than people who regularly fly&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;is-basic-economy-really-a-deal&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;is-basic-economy-really-a-d...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;united-selling-basic-economy&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thepointsguy.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;united-selling-basic-econom...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nostrademons</author><text>Airlines don&amp;#x27;t want you to comparison shop for amenities, because then &lt;i&gt;those&lt;/i&gt; will become a race to the bottom as well, and airlines will gradually reduce the amount of legroom available in Economy+ until it&amp;#x27;s just barely above regular Economy.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, basically all the major airlines except Southwest offer this.  It&amp;#x27;s Economy+ on United, Delta Comfort on Delta, Premium Economy on American, Main Cabin Select on Virgin America, Even More on JetBlue, etc.  I found this out through looking at the front page of each of their websites.  Prices range from $40-50 (additional) per seat per leg.  You can select it upon seat selection at the airline&amp;#x27;s website (which is where an aggregator will take you, anyway): the extra economy+ seats that are available are shown together with the price for the update, and you just have to click on them and it will adjust your fare accordingly.&lt;p&gt;So now you know.  Incidentally, this is pretty good evidence of this subthread&amp;#x27;s point: you expected to be told all of this by going through a 3rd-party aggregator where you can search by cost.  If you are representative of the average American consumer (which is probably pretty likely), it&amp;#x27;s no wonder the airlines compete on cost.</text></comment>