Air travel got way cheaper and more popular over the last two or three decades. Some of this is deregulation and technological innovation enabling lower fuel costs. Much more of this is because customers almost always choose the lowest cost airfare over all other choices. This is a constant pressure to reduce cost and features of the flight and reflects what the average coach customer actually wants. It is nothing to be mad about. Airlines are a low-margin industry, which in my mind trends towards nonexploitative.

If you look at proportions of revenue and costs, the premium seats of an airplane subsidize the cheap seats. And they get to the destination maybe 5 minutes earlier if they disembark first.