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Comment by czstar | Hacker News Reader

I remember flying during regulation and I wish we’d go back to those days. Flying back then was so much better.

It was also a lot more expensive back then. Today you can pay first class and get better service. Ultimately this is what happens when air travel gets democratized: people focus on low costs.

Alternately, they add or increase costs for features that were once free/affordable until most people are priced out of them.

Between those two forces (airlines cutting services in order to make flying available to more people, and airlines turning once standard features into high priced "premium" features to line their pockets at the expense of most travelers) the effect is pretty much the same: Most people who want to fly have no option, but to find the most affordable rates where they can expect to get substandard service while only a small number of very wealthy people get what used to be granted to everyone with a ticket.

Air travel was once a luxury experience at a luxury price, and things had to change to open it to more people, but things like standing seats (https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/standing-up-airplane-seat...) and fees for carry on bags are certainly not necessary and are just airlines abusing passengers for profit.

The problem is that for the economy passenger, low fares really seem to be the end-all in terms of purchasing decisions. Legacy carriers were forced to resort to the same tactics low cost carriers did for checked baggage, because their passengers were leaving in droves, never mind that after fees prices were pretty much the same.

The “decent medium” market segment is actually fairly small. Hence why there aren’t really 100% premium economy cabins, they wouldn’t fill.

Adding on to your well stated points. Today we have to pay for Pre Check in order to have an experience that is still worse than the status quo ante. We are paying for a less bad experience.

In many ways, I agree. There were far fewer people in the terminal and on any given flight. The service was better, too. Up front on TWA they carved the Chateaubriand at your seat. But simply eliminating smoking tips the scales in favor of flying today, for me (back then, they included mini-packs of smokes with the meal trays- gross). Also the current lie-flat seats/pods are awesome, even if you share the cabin with twice as many passengers.

It was also enormously expensive.

Yes and it’d be good from an environmental point of view if it had remained so. Even discounting the environmental aspect I still wish for the days of regulation. The cheaper air fares with the accompanying horrible experience is not worth it in my opinion.

Easy enough to fly first class. You get the leg room, and perks, and pay the money.

I prefer coach during regulation to first class now.

Are you referring to the "first-class" cabin on the vast majority of domestic flights? OK, maybe.

Bin space used to be plentiful in the back, so I'll give you that. And maybe you're checking bags. But here are some things you're missing out on in coach in 1980 that you get up front today:

- You're first-on.

- Drinks before takeoff (it doesn't have to be the champagne that comes by on the tray, you can ask for anything).

- Followed by a real service: drinks, appetizers, entree, dessert.

- Pillows and blankets that are actually comfortable. More than you'll know what to do with.

- Amenity kit, robe, slippers.

- A smoke-free environment.

- The brass ring, a 100% lie-flat bed surrounded by a privacy partition.

- You're first-off.

This is all just my preference and opinion. Smoking likely would have been banned eventually under regulation. I think the smoking issue is orthogonal to the discussion. Your other points stand and I was thinking only about domestic flights when I made my comment.

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