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Comment by avar | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps the free market is solving the pricing/timeliness problem, but your fellow travelers value lower prices more than being on time?

    > Business class prices on
    > tickets have skyrocketed

The people with more disposable income who are subsidizing air travel for the rest of us are giving us an even larger subsidy these days? I feel just terrible about that.

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It’s not that simple. Business is representing an ever increasing % of travellers, so airlines are increasing the % of business class seating, leaving fewer seats for economy seating and therefore less availability in economy, so you might not even end up seeing the savings in your flight ticket since more economy passengers are competing with each other.

If this was true they would raise economy prices.

They're degrading economy to the point where people feel like they have to upgrade. I'm not that tall or large but I can no longer tolerate American's economy seating, my knees are jammed into the seat in front of me before they recline, it's down right painful if they choose to recline.

Live in DFW, which is an American hub and my largest option for direct flights and flight availability in general which is why I mention them

> Business is representing an ever increasing % of travellers

Is it? I thought that trend reversed in 2020.

I’m not sure you can accurately track any airline-related trend through the years 2021-2023, for obvious reasons.

It’s not people buying first class most of the time. It’s business travelers getting reimbursed.

>The people with more disposable income

Business class tickets are bought by companies not people. You pay for that "subsidy" through more expensive products to pay for that exec's stupid flight to a symposium where they all talk about how great they are and how important their ideas are.

Every time I've flown First/Business class, it's been out of my own pocket. Every time I've had my employer pay for a flight, it's been in cattle class.

Now I'm wondering what percentage of people in First/Business class are paying for the flight themselves.

Domestic at least, I expect a lot is upgrades for status travelers (who have flown a lot of it on company expense accounts). At least that's my experience.

In semi-retirement, I probably do need to burn down my points though.

My current employer lets me expense flights so that I book in First and they pay what it would have cost in cattle. Might be worth it?

Otoh, I have minor elite status and have gotten upgraded to cattle plus the last couple flights which might be nice enough.

I fly frequently on average more than once a month and I really don’t see the benefit of first class for domestic flights. I am short though. I’m good with exit row seats.

We aren’t budget travelers and we have been on a plane for leisure 12+ times a year since 2021. We are both Platinum Medallion on Delta and get automatic C+ upgrades at time of booking and enjoy our lounge access (via credit cards).

I think the average flyer can be pretty confident that they're saving more on the flight than the incremental addition to their grocery bills attributable to company executives' flight costs...

YUP! As usual HN downvotes the truth! I have NEVER seen a business who is willing to let people actually travel in business class outside of the C suite and even then I've seen them refuse it for C suite!!!

This includes for people making 500K+ a year. Still forced to sit in coach unless they pay out of pocket.

Normies ruined business class. Can't get business class tickets on international flights for anything less than 10X and often more like 20X the price of economy. It should be no more than 4X.

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