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> Your product has been totally commoditized by airfare-pricing websites. That American made $24 billion last year without passing on anything to consumers sho
by guelo 11y ago
> Your product has been totally commoditized by airfare-pricing websites.
That American made $24 billion last year without passing on anything to consumers shows that that is wrong. Pricing websites are under full control of the airlines at this point.
- morgante 11y agoSavings are passed on to consumers, in part. Airline fares are near all time lows.
- guelo 11y agoThe point is that gas prices collapsed last year but ticket prices did not drop.
- pvaclavek 11y agoWhy should the price of a ticket be neccessarily bound to gas price? Wouldn't most people pay the same price regardless of gas price?
- jonknee 11y agoWhen gas prices went up fares followed. When gas prices went down fares stayed the same (and profits soared).
- guelo 11y agoThe point of the article is that there is not enough competition. If there were more competition some of the profits would go to consumers instead of being hoarded by the companies.
- jonknee 11y agoYou can't directly compare fares because there are more people on the flights (thanks to all those mergers there is a lot less route competition and flights are now often at capacity), there are more seats per plane (remember leg room?) and they charge for things that they didn't used to (luggage, having a reserved seat, food, etc).
- strange_quark 11y ago> That American made $24 billion last year without passing on anything to consumers shows that that is wrong. Pricing websites are under full control of the airlines at this point. You misread the article. That actual quote: > The profit bit of the picture, though, has changed a lot. Last year America’s airlines made $24 billion—more than Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Which is a ridiculous comparison. They're seriously comparing an entire industry to one company? If anything, the complaint should be that Alphabet makes too much money.
- sreya 11y agoYeah I thought that comparison was a little suspect
- zymhan 11y agoI totally read that the first time as "American Airlines", thinking it was a single airline that made more than Alphabet. What the hell does it mean to compare an industry to a company in another field?
- justinlardinois 11y agoYeah that doesn't really make any sense. Comparisons to unrelated things can be helpful just to get a sense of how much money that is, but it doesn't do that in this case.