3 ms·

This assumes they don't make any money from selling space in the cargo hold for air mail couriers.

• hx87 10y ago
  Can't they sell carry-on space too?
• SilasX 10y ago
  Right, but if we assume passenger space trades off one-to-one for cargo hold space [1], then the airline could reallocate the overhead bins to cargo (e.g. raise the floor). Then they could sell out even more cargo space as mail. So, in equilibrium, passengers should have to "compensate" (pay a premium) for the airline's lost opportunity to rent out the space. Instead, everyone gets some of that premium, human-usable space for free. But if people are going to get some lump of space for free, why not make it the cargo hold, which is less constrained (doesn't have to be human usable) and thus cheaper? They're effectively letting people with more expensive requirements (must be able to access my stuff during flight) be subsidized by people with less expensive requirements ("I can wait until after the flight to access my stuff"). [1] which is probably true enough to a first approximation; you could redesign the interior to have more cargo space and less passenger space
  • detaro 10y ago
    Is floor height (and thus window positioning, ...) something an airline can order customized? (genuine question, I always thought of that stuff as fixed, but I could very well be wrong)