Everyone over 40 knows how terrible air travel has become.
I don’t need meals for domestic flights, and it’s trivial for me to pack a little something. Noise canceling earphones and ipads/laptops/phones make entertaining oneself trivial.
There is even wifi now, and messaging is free so you can be in constant communication with your friends/family, especially to coordinate pickup.
The planes themselves are better (except maybe if you are a big person). But price per hour of flight time for me has stayed below inflation, so I assume the extra seats helps offset that for me.
I can buy flights anywhere, anytime on my electronic devices, have the boarding passes on my watch or phone or paper, and I can get push notifications about all flights so pickups/dropoffs are simple. I can even see the status of the plane’s previous flight so I get even more of a heads up about delays. There is also luggage tracking available now, at least with airtags if not from the airline itself.
In the early 1990s, my girlfriend was scared of flying. I went with her to the gate for emotional support. I also sometimes met people when they arrived at the gate. No longer, at least, not without some planning.
In the early 1990s, full names and id checks were not required. This made for an active resale market which has since disappeared, with the profit going to the airliners. My mother and I share the same first initial, which proved personally useful one time when we booked the ticket as "E. Smith" since we weren't sure which of us was going make the trip. No longer.
In the 1990s, from drop-off to gate in the small city I lived was about 5 minutes, for carry-on. Check-in at the gate by showing the ticket. The only inspection was for guns. I regularly carried a pocket knife back then, even on planes. No longer.
In the early 2000s I traveled international. My carry-on at times included bottles of beer (to share with people in Europe) and wine (returning from South Africa), since I thought that would be safer than in my luggage. I bought them in regular stores. No longer.
Around 2008 I made the mistake once of returning international via SFO to visit friends there. I knew where they lived - I've driven there many times. But I didn't know their zip, only their street address, and there was no way for me to check in the new automated kiosk without that vital piece of useless information. I was able to look it up, but I was flustered and in panic that I would miss the flight.
Back in the 1990s, as US citizen I could just show up in most countries, with only my passport - no visa, no fingerprinting, no automated facial recognition, and no "electronic system for travel authorization" or rather its foreign equivalents.
It even worked the other way. I had friends of mine from South Africa going to Canada for a conference, with a transfer in the US. They didn't know they were supposed to get a US visa even though they didn't leave the airport. But the US at the time did have the TWOV (Transit Without Visa) program, which meant they were able to get to the conference and back home. They even had a comfortable TWOV room at the airport, and an escort for those who needed to step outside for a smoke. The TWOV program was suspended in 2003 and has not been restored.
Air travel in the 1990s felt like freedom. Now it feels like a key part of modern government security and control, with little leeway for humanity.
https://travelupdate.com/business-class-seat-selection-fee/
Wanna sit with your partner? Both of you, pay up! Lounge access? Oh, that's extra now.
Don’t care about who you sit next to? Have a discount!
Suppose you operate an airline, and your costs increase (e.g. fuel, labor, etc). Your options are to divide the increase equally by number of seats, or you increase price differently based on customer’s ability and willingness to pay.
I do not see what is “wrong” about the latter. In fact, the latter would allow maintaining more access to air travel for those who can afford it the least.
I don’t care for airport lounges, why should I pay for them? Same for bigger seats, or checked bags, or alcoholic drinks, etc.
Because the "sticker" price is prominently advertised, so advertising a lower price than nickel-and-diming up leaves a sour taste in people's mouths rather than advertising a higher price then offering a discount, even if the final prices are the same. Of course, everyone shops for flights on comparison websites, so their only metric is that sticker price, and airlines have to engage in this sort of stuff to be competitive.
Imagine if they charged extra for seat belts, or getting help evacuating after a crash. Some people would be willing to take the extra risk in exchange for paying less. You let more people access air travel. People who value safety can pay extra for more of it. There would be rightful outrage.
Something like lounge access is firmly in the realm of reasonable price discrimination. Charge extra, certainly! But something like charging extra to sit with your travel companions is bullshit. That sort of thing should be strongly rejected.
Why? This isn't happening, and I can't figure out how it is productive to make up a scenario.
>But something like charging extra to sit with your travel companions is bullshit. That sort of thing should be strongly rejected.
Suppose a plane has seats in groups of 3s, and everyone on the plane is in a group of even number of people. Obviously, seating everyone together is impossible. As a seller, why is it "bullshit" to give the people that do not get to sit with their companion a lower price?
Airlines are looking at standing seats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_seat), which would absolutely impact evacuation safety (mainly a concern of bandwidth through the aisle/doors) to save some ticket costs.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/mar/05/ryanair-toi...
> Obviously, seating everyone together is impossible.
We manage it just fine at the movie theater, at sports stadiums, etc.
Sometimes you're one row behind. Sometimes the last person to book is in a weird spot. But largely, if you want to sit with your spouse, you'll be able to.
At a certain point, the bean counters have to be told no.
>Ryanair threatened to make people pay for toilet usage.
Ryanair says a lot of crap as part of their advertising strategy. It is ragebait/clickbait/etc. Eitherway, it's on the government to enforce basic standards.
>At a certain point, the bean counters have to be told no.
The government should ensure minimum standards (and sufficient competition in the market). Everything else, let the customers decide what they want or do not want to pay for.
"Other people are also enshittifying" is not the argument you think it to be. (It's not the case in my area, incidentally.)
You asserted it couldn't be done. I quote:
> Obviously, seating everyone together is impossible.
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees with this statement. The disagreement is what "minimum standards" should consist of.
Currently, the US's minimum standards include giving everybody seat belts, but not ensuring that children are seated with their parents. That, to me, is very much not the right place to draw the line.
But they can, and will, always stretch this further than it should go.
It's like a restaurant that charges you extra for cutlery. Some cultures eat with their hands, and probably plenty of people would take a discount to do so. But it ruins the experience in the long term, and then the industry demands a bailout and we all get to pay more taxes for a shitty experience so they can buy back shares to boost the stock.
Eventually "basic economy" becomes a single iron maiden at the back of the plane used to punish the lowest-paying passenger for not knowing about its existence.
That is just an opinion. For example:
>It's like a restaurant that charges you extra for cutlery. Some cultures eat with their hands, and probably plenty of people would take a discount to do so. But it ruins the experience in the long term
My parents and family come from a culture that almost exclusively eats with their hands. It is so important to them that they actually say they do not feel like they have eaten unless they eat with their hands.
>and then the industry demands a bailout and we all get to pay more taxes for a shitty experience so they can buy back shares to boost the stock.
This is a separate topic about politics, not about the "right" or "wrong" nature of a business choosing how to price discriminate.
>Eventually "basic economy" becomes a single iron maiden at the back of the plane used to punish the lowest-paying passenger for not knowing about its existence.
Not according to any flight I have been on. I don't see the point of feeling outrage at something that hasn't happened. In my experience, basic economy is still just as clean and safe of a seat as the others, you get on the plane, sit down, and put headphones on or read a book or go to sleep. If they let me pay a lower price for that, great!
Are we just learning about future tense?
> In my experience, basic economy is still just as clean and safe of a seat as the others...
They are meaningfully less safe.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8412040/
"Economy class syndrome refers to the occurrence of thrombotic events during long-haul flights, mainly in economy class passengers."
I am a pleb and say this btw.
Low cost economy was a mistake and shouldn’t exist. Half of all people shouldn’t be flying.