<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>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>gnopgnip</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t need to be in first class for a better flight experience. You can book with another airline that has better accommodations or get a seat with more room like comfort plus for just a little more.</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>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>TheGRS</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s another wrinkle with buying plane tickets: they fluctuate, seemingly at random, on a daily basis. Apparently its now better to call up the airline directly than to buy online because the prices are so unpredictable. I&amp;#x27;ll watch a flight on Google Flights oftentimes and watch as it goes up $100 one day, down $200 another day. It makes shopping between carriers very difficult.</text></comment>