Planes don't fly as fast as they can, the key metric that planes optimize for is fuel efficiency. Similarly planes aren't optimized for most comfort - they are

Planes don't fly as fast as they can, the key metric that planes optimize for is fuel efficiency. Similarly planes aren't optimized for most comfort - they are optimized for the number of people per mile, as long as it's still comfortable enough. There is quite a lot of innovation going on in terms of fuel efficiency and minimum comfort - https://www.theicct.org/publications/fuel-efficiency-trends-new-commercial-jet-aircraft-1960-2014 https://www.theicct.org/publications/fuel-efficiency-trends-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Futur... The result of these innovations are cheap prices - https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-air...