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Basically people shop based on price then have a miserable experience, but somehow not miserable enough to stop shopping based on price. My favorite airline is

Basically people shop based on price then have a miserable experience, but somehow not miserable enough to stop shopping based on price. My favorite airline is awful. Uncomfortable, slow, frequent delays, etc. But it's also cheap enough that I would never fly anything else. So I am the problem, but there's no way I'm paying an extra $50/flight.

mikeash 9y ago
Exactly. If you want a better experience, you can have it, but you have to pay for it. Airline crap bothered me a lot less once I realized this. I still shop almost exclusively on price, but now that I've internalized that tiny seats are ultimately my choice, it's less annoying. Blaming Wall Street doesn't make sense to me. Companies would still want to make more money regardless of Wall Street. Blame the customers. Airlines are just giving us what we want! Ask the typical airline passenger what they want and they'll probably say they want a double-wide seat with 6ft of legroom and a free filet mignon meal, but when you watch what they buy it's obvious that they much prefer a cheaper seat that they can barely fit into. Turns out I prefer that too.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  You can actually get that (and more) in first or business class. Most people don't want to pay for that level of service though.
  - CharlesW 9y ago
    > Most people don't want to pay for that level of service though. And if it's on the company's dime, many (most?) companies won't.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Exactly! The stuff people say they want is only a click away, but when the time comes to pay, their real desires make themselves known.
    - untog 9y ago
      Sure, but the price differential is crazy. I will frequently pay extra for an exit row, at $50-$75. But an upgrade to business class is often three times the price of economy. And it's just not worth that much.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        Sounds reasonable to me. That seat probably takes up close to 3x the area.
        SeoxyS 9y ago
        The market is segmented reasonably. Most people won't pay for business, so most seats are economy. On certain routes, the flight is so unpleasant that economy would be unbearable for most, so airlines have planes that don't have economy (e.g. SIN-JFK on Singapore Airlines used to be all business class; when the route comes back with their A350-10 deliveries, it'll be all premium economy and business). Personally, I fly only in business or first on long flights, and buy economy on short flights. It's worth it to me to avoid the jet lag and be able to bear the amount of travel I do (in the past year I've probably done over 40 flights >5h and close to 100 flights total). Flying domestically in economy becomes a lot more comfortable if you give a legacy airline your loyalty. e.g. I get upgraded to first two third of the time and always get the best seating, priority lines, free drinks & food onboard, and lounge access as a United 1K frequent flyer.
    - sgift 9y ago
      Only a click - if you can pay it. You make it sound as if everyone can pay the prices that companies want for a first class flight.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        That's my whole point. People say they want these things, but the reality is that they don't want to pay what these things cost. Of course I want bigger seats and great food while still paying the rock-bottom prices we currently have for cattle-class tickets. But that's not realistic. If you say you want X, but always choose Y because it's cheaper, then you have no room to complain about how bad Y is.
- planteen 9y ago
  One concern is work forcing you too book the cheapest flights for business travel. In that case, it is in your interest for the lowest fares to be more comfortable.
  - obstinate 9y ago
    Aren't business travelers normally the ones splashing out for business class and premium economy?
    - mikeash 9y ago
      It really depends on the business and the traveler. Some companies are happy to pay a lot of money to keep their people comfortable while traveling. Others want to be as cheap as humanly possible.
      - gommm 9y ago
        And, as a word of advice, if you're in a company that is reasonably successful and makes you travel as cheaply as humanly possible, it's usually a sign that they don't respect you and that you should probably start looking somewhere else.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Those policies will just have to change. I don't see people arguing that sleazy motels need to up their game because business travelers are required to book the cheapest room available, or that McDonald's hamburgers should be more nutritious because business travelers are required to eat the cheapest meal available.
    - SilasX 9y ago
      Is there a general solution to that problem though? What stops the "race to the bottom" in company-provided hotel accommodations? Do corporate policies say something like "2 star hotel less than X minutes from where business will take place..."?
chime 9y ago
I have found AA at higher, about equal, and lower prices than Delta and United for the same destination/date based on when I was searching. A specific flight's price depends on so many variables and is not the best indicator of the quality. Most of the times when I look for flights, one or two airlines (with nearby hubs) cost half or third of other airlines. When AA and Delta cost $800 for a flight while United costs $300, it is pretty much a no-brainer. Only rarely do I even see comparable prices ($25-$75 differences) between multiple large airlines for the same flight paths / dates. So even if consumers become more price inelastic, they still do not have enough power to vote with their money because the choices are not always comparable. If every AA flight cost x% more than every United flight, consumers could show United that they care more about service than a few dollars. But since there is such a high variability in the fares, there's no easy way to send a message within the market.
maxxxxx 9y ago
If someone offered consistently better service I would consider paying more but so far I haven't found that airline. They all seem to suck in their own ways.
aidenn0 9y ago
There is exactly one airline (United) that can go from where I live to where my parents live with only one stop. The experience of that is so bad that we drive for 4 days each way rather than fly. We get to see family in the midwest we other wise would see less often, and now that we have 4 kids it's cheaper too.
notahacker 9y ago
This. It's easy to point fingers at evil executives and Wall Street investors, but ultimately the reason airlines squeeze seats and service options is because not enough people will pay more for a couple of extra inches of legroom to make fitting aircraft with fewer seats and more legroom a viable competitive option. I mean, a single digit percentage of seats on an aircraft are exit row seats with extra legroom and they still sometimes end up randomly assigning them because not enough people have paid the tiny premium they ask for! And that Basic Economy ticket where you don't get cabin baggage is being introduced because they know some people want that.
- SilasX 9y ago
  Likewise, it's easy to blame consumers for always going with the cheap option when they don't have tools that allow them to easily understand the tradeoff. Which travel sites makes it easy to input (something isomorphic to) a utility function over all the ways that you can save on the flight? Or know how many inches of legroom you need?
- yusyusyus 9y ago
  Sometimes, too, corporate travel fun mandates the lowest fare. So even if i would pay $25 for some extra legroom, I cannot!
baddox 9y ago
I don't think $50 a flight is going to get you much on a low-price domestic flight, other than maybe a slightly better itinerary, or priority boarding.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
marssaxman 9y ago
Is there some other way to shop? When I search for a flight, I make my choice based on flight times and price, because that's the information available. If I could sort the options by least to most awful, I might pay more for less awfulness, but I have no way of knowing that, so I don't. If you are a very frequent business traveller, I can see how you might have enough familiarity with the different airlines to know what their brands mean, but all I've got to work with is "never fly United".

mikeash 9y ago

Exactly. If you want a better experience, you can have it, but you have to pay for it. Airline crap bothered me a lot less once I realized this. I still shop almost exclusively on price, but now that I've internalized that tiny seats are ultimately my choice, it's less annoying. Blaming Wall Street doesn't make sense to me. Companies would still want to make more money regardless of Wall Street. Blame the customers. Airlines are just giving us what we want! Ask the typical airline passenger what they want and they'll probably say they want a double-wide seat with 6ft of legroom and a free filet mignon meal, but when you watch what they buy it's obvious that they much prefer a cheaper seat that they can barely fit into. Turns out I prefer that too.

jdavis703 9y ago
You can actually get that (and more) in first or business class. Most people don't want to pay for that level of service though.
- CharlesW 9y ago
  > Most people don't want to pay for that level of service though. And if it's on the company's dime, many (most?) companies won't.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Exactly! The stuff people say they want is only a click away, but when the time comes to pay, their real desires make themselves known.
  - untog 9y ago
    Sure, but the price differential is crazy. I will frequently pay extra for an exit row, at $50-$75. But an upgrade to business class is often three times the price of economy. And it's just not worth that much.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Sounds reasonable to me. That seat probably takes up close to 3x the area.
      - SeoxyS 9y ago
        The market is segmented reasonably. Most people won't pay for business, so most seats are economy. On certain routes, the flight is so unpleasant that economy would be unbearable for most, so airlines have planes that don't have economy (e.g. SIN-JFK on Singapore Airlines used to be all business class; when the route comes back with their A350-10 deliveries, it'll be all premium economy and business). Personally, I fly only in business or first on long flights, and buy economy on short flights. It's worth it to me to avoid the jet lag and be able to bear the amount of travel I do (in the past year I've probably done over 40 flights >5h and close to 100 flights total). Flying domestically in economy becomes a lot more comfortable if you give a legacy airline your loyalty. e.g. I get upgraded to first two third of the time and always get the best seating, priority lines, free drinks & food onboard, and lounge access as a United 1K frequent flyer.
  - sgift 9y ago
    Only a click - if you can pay it. You make it sound as if everyone can pay the prices that companies want for a first class flight.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      That's my whole point. People say they want these things, but the reality is that they don't want to pay what these things cost. Of course I want bigger seats and great food while still paying the rock-bottom prices we currently have for cattle-class tickets. But that's not realistic. If you say you want X, but always choose Y because it's cheaper, then you have no room to complain about how bad Y is.
planteen 9y ago
One concern is work forcing you too book the cheapest flights for business travel. In that case, it is in your interest for the lowest fares to be more comfortable.
- obstinate 9y ago
  Aren't business travelers normally the ones splashing out for business class and premium economy?
  - mikeash 9y ago
    It really depends on the business and the traveler. Some companies are happy to pay a lot of money to keep their people comfortable while traveling. Others want to be as cheap as humanly possible.
    - gommm 9y ago
      And, as a word of advice, if you're in a company that is reasonably successful and makes you travel as cheaply as humanly possible, it's usually a sign that they don't respect you and that you should probably start looking somewhere else.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Those policies will just have to change. I don't see people arguing that sleazy motels need to up their game because business travelers are required to book the cheapest room available, or that McDonald's hamburgers should be more nutritious because business travelers are required to eat the cheapest meal available.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    Is there a general solution to that problem though? What stops the "race to the bottom" in company-provided hotel accommodations? Do corporate policies say something like "2 star hotel less than X minutes from where business will take place..."?

chime 9y ago

I have found AA at higher, about equal, and lower prices than Delta and United for the same destination/date based on when I was searching. A specific flight's price depends on so many variables and is not the best indicator of the quality. Most of the times when I look for flights, one or two airlines (with nearby hubs) cost half or third of other airlines. When AA and Delta cost $800 for a flight while United costs $300, it is pretty much a no-brainer. Only rarely do I even see comparable prices ($25-$75 differences) between multiple large airlines for the same flight paths / dates. So even if consumers become more price inelastic, they still do not have enough power to vote with their money because the choices are not always comparable. If every AA flight cost x% more than every United flight, consumers could show United that they care more about service than a few dollars. But since there is such a high variability in the fares, there's no easy way to send a message within the market.

maxxxxx 9y ago

If someone offered consistently better service I would consider paying more but so far I haven't found that airline. They all seem to suck in their own ways.

aidenn0 9y ago

There is exactly one airline (United) that can go from where I live to where my parents live with only one stop. The experience of that is so bad that we drive for 4 days each way rather than fly. We get to see family in the midwest we other wise would see less often, and now that we have 4 kids it's cheaper too.

notahacker 9y ago

This. It's easy to point fingers at evil executives and Wall Street investors, but ultimately the reason airlines squeeze seats and service options is because not enough people will pay more for a couple of extra inches of legroom to make fitting aircraft with fewer seats and more legroom a viable competitive option. I mean, a single digit percentage of seats on an aircraft are exit row seats with extra legroom and they still sometimes end up randomly assigning them because not enough people have paid the tiny premium they ask for! And that Basic Economy ticket where you don't get cabin baggage is being introduced because they know some people want that.

SilasX 9y ago
Likewise, it's easy to blame consumers for always going with the cheap option when they don't have tools that allow them to easily understand the tradeoff. Which travel sites makes it easy to input (something isomorphic to) a utility function over all the ways that you can save on the flight? Or know how many inches of legroom you need?
yusyusyus 9y ago
Sometimes, too, corporate travel fun mandates the lowest fare. So even if i would pay $25 for some extra legroom, I cannot!

baddox 9y ago

I don't think $50 a flight is going to get you much on a low-price domestic flight, other than maybe a slightly better itinerary, or priority boarding.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

marssaxman 9y ago

Is there some other way to shop? When I search for a flight, I make my choice based on flight times and price, because that's the information available. If I could sort the options by least to most awful, I might pay more for less awfulness, but I have no way of knowing that, so I don't. If you are a very frequent business traveller, I can see how you might have enough familiarity with the different airlines to know what their brands mean, but all I've got to work with is "never fly United".