4 ms·

One word: deregulation. It's been a very sharp double-edged sword: on the one hand, it gave us effective competitors like Southwest and jetBlue forcing the "le

by MandieD 10y ago

One word: deregulation. It's been a very sharp double-edged sword: on the one hand, it gave us effective competitors like Southwest and jetBlue forcing the "legacy" carriers to compete on price and routes, enabling far more people to be able to fly. On the other, it caused the legacy carriers compete on price, not service (the only thing they could really compete on before deregulation). Personally, I fly Southwest and jetBlue when I'm in the US, but to get there, I end up on Delta/KLM/Air France. The prices are usually around what the legacy carriers are, but they have pretty much maintained the level of service they started with (Southwest famously never had meal service, only packets of peanuts). I think because they never got into the habit of cutting back a little bit each year, they haven't gotten into the same downward spiral the legacy carriers seem to have.

smitherfield 10y ago
Deregulation is the reason the middle class can afford to fly at all. Pre-deregulation, a Boston-LA flight would be $500 in 1978 dollars.
- deleted 10y ago
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- jehoshaphat 10y ago
  Yeah, but pre-deregulation there were plenty of seats for employees and dependents to fly and airlines were making money. Airlines didn't have to have police with rubber hoses beat randomly selected passengers until they could be dragged off the plane. Source: dad was a middle-class airline employee during this period. I flew on his pass. Could not wear tights, though. I am currently a middle-class schmuck. Don't fly because I'd rather stab myself in the eye..and, oh, can't afford to.
tyingq 10y ago
There's more than just deregulation. Post 9/11, the airlines made changes to deal with the temporary (~3 year) lull in demand. They didn't pull those changes back after demand came back in spades. These were things like tighter seat pitch, higher average load factors, bag fees, bigger change fees, shifting capacity to higher margin international flights, etc. I'm sure there are more factors as well. Flying is just a chore these days. And there's not much granularity of choice. There's 'cattle class', and the jump in price to something better (business, first) is huge...and does little for large parts of the bad experience. Compare to say, hotels, where there are many tiers of quality you can choose from.

by MandieD 10y ago

smitherfield 10y ago

Deregulation is the reason the middle class can afford to fly at all. Pre-deregulation, a Boston-LA flight would be $500 in 1978 dollars.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jehoshaphat 10y ago
Yeah, but pre-deregulation there were plenty of seats for employees and dependents to fly and airlines were making money. Airlines didn't have to have police with rubber hoses beat randomly selected passengers until they could be dragged off the plane. Source: dad was a middle-class airline employee during this period. I flew on his pass. Could not wear tights, though. I am currently a middle-class schmuck. Don't fly because I'd rather stab myself in the eye..and, oh, can't afford to.

tyingq 10y ago

There's more than just deregulation. Post 9/11, the airlines made changes to deal with the temporary (~3 year) lull in demand. They didn't pull those changes back after demand came back in spades. These were things like tighter seat pitch, higher average load factors, bag fees, bigger change fees, shifting capacity to higher margin international flights, etc. I'm sure there are more factors as well. Flying is just a chore these days. And there's not much granularity of choice. There's 'cattle class', and the jump in price to something better (business, first) is huge...and does little for large parts of the bad experience. Compare to say, hotels, where there are many tiers of quality you can choose from.