It's perfectly possible that that cost difference is massively exaggerated. It might well just be 95$ vs 100$. But if you don't have the information that one is far more risky, then you always pick the 95$ option, don't you?
Air travellers by and large choose their travel based on price. If a subset started paying a premium for Airbuses, the market would sort them and remain relatively equally profitable for those flying Boeings.
Given how quickly Delta's Comfort+ seats sell, I'd be surprised if they don't install more of those. Given their brand, a row or two of Basic Economy (for e.g. college students), a small main, a healthy Comfort+ and a solid front cabin might be the play.
That data, which I'm sure Delta has and looks at, could strongly influence how many overall rows of seating to remove in order to fit more rows of Comfort+.
I have never flown top tier air travel, but even the best experience is somewhere on the scale of cattle-car-in-the-sky. It is a necessary evil to get me to somewhere in a way that is faster than driving. Paying a premium has rapidly diminishing returns when you are stuck in a shared space with the public.
To varying degrees. Air travel is a product where cost dominates more than with other services.
> even the best experience is somewhere on the scale of cattle-car-in-the-sky
This is most Americans. I personally find lay-flat seats worth the premium from time to time, though not always.
I don't see it that way. I see it as a necessary evil to get me somewhere in a way that is much, much, much faster than a ship.