> consumers are more inclined to pay for luxury.
Are they? Genuinely curious. With inflation rates we’ve seen lately it’s been my impression that the opposite is the case.
Are they? Genuinely curious. With inflation rates we’ve seen lately it’s been my impression that the opposite is the case.
That begs the question, how much cheaper is a Spirit flight compared to other carriers for a given itinerary? In my experience, it's maybe $50-$150, compared to a trip that might cost $500-$2000 overall. It's not like fliers are choosing between Spirit and first class on Delta. They're deciding whether or not to spend an extra ~$100 to be slightly less miserable on a trip that may be one of their largest single expenses of the year, and maybe their only trip of the year.
I feel like this is true for the entry and value priced offerings in a ton of industries.
> single yearly vacation
This is genuinely sad and unhealthy.
I've been on planes / trains / coaches that are expected to have them, but who had faulty outlets at my seat for that particular journey and I wasn't able to use them. So I just have a small battery pack (little bit bigger than a pack of cards), and a big one for laptop recharging, and I take one or both (plus my slightly bigger than a lipstick one that's light and fits easily in pretty much every clothing pocket I own) depending on the trip I'm going on, meaning no added complexity as it's just like remembering to take my laptop's power cable, and I no longer have to spend any time thinking about whether the transport will or won't have a power source for me.
I appreciate what works for me won't be the preferred solution for everyone, but for me it definitely leads to less overthinking per trip not more. (And personally I don't notice the added weight of these batteries in my bag; and I would want them for travelling even if I could be guaranteed every flight & train had working power outlets, as I've had times when they were useful to have when visiting a client's offices, or when staying in a hotel with a dodgy outlet, or when going hiking an nowhere near power outlets - so in my case it wasn't even an additional cost caused by not trusting planes to provide a good power supply.)
Low-cost companies targeted people with low disposable income at the cost of comfort.
People who used to have low disposable income have now not enough to travel by plane (or at all), and people who had enough to use standard companies have still enough to use them.
A very interesting fact is that median income grew in the US (less than average, but close enough). The standard deviation (from memory, if this isn't the translation of 'écart-type' I'm sorry) grew also, which indicate that the recent economic 'boom' the US experienced since the end of covid took more than 50% of us citizen with it, but clearly not a huge majority. Germany experienced a very similar thing since 2012. To my knowledge, in Germany it was most likely caused by a transfer from progressive taxation to a fixed one, reducing purchasing powers of people with low disposable income. In the US it seems it's a direct income issue.