It's all relative. Suppose the cheapest flights were twice what they currently are. Let's say $350 transatlantic one way, or $2300 return on your flight from South Africa to the eastern US. Flights would still be affordable to the middle class, which despite your "peasants" wording actually makes up ~100% of cost-conscious flyers. We'd fly less often and complain - as we do now - that flying would be so much better if we had twice the space per person for the same price and spent some of that on gyms, creches and hot bunks.
But actually we live in that counterfactual! And it turns out we don't really want those amenities. Our collective expressed preference - and given the lack of variety across airlines, it must be almost unanimous - is to be squeezed tighter and get to fly intercontinental a bit more often.