14 ms·

Looks like a regular, boring law full of regular, boring regulations. I don't see any issues. >The story of this law has been dominated largely by what isn't i

• ranie93 8y ago
  Is the airline industry disrupt-able enough for market forces to make changes? Consumer choice/efforts are moot in a monopolized sector.
  • ghaff 8y ago
    Market forces have made changes. They've pretty much demonstrated that people make decisions based on the cheapest base fare. So the airlines have mostly (and even the newer airlines have moved in this direction over time) added baggage fees, board early fees, significant change fees, seat selection fees, etc. The frequent fliers are mostly immune to all this and the family visiting grandma is often going to pick the absolute cheapest flight.
    • nostrademons 8y ago
      Not entirely - in-flight wifi, extra legroom, lie-flat business class, and seatback-controllable entertainment & food service are innovations that have spread across the industry because carriers found that customers will switch airlines to get access to them. In many cases they're even moneymakers, with customers willing to pay extra for them. I think that the industry has generally found that price-discrimination is a powerful tool, though. The business traveler flying Sydney<->SFO on the corporate dime will pay the extra several thousand for lie-flat seats; the upper-middle-class family with bored kids will pay for wifi and tablet holders; but keeping those (and baggage, prime seat selection, early check-in, etc.) optional keeps flying accessible to the working-class laborer who needs to fly home for a funeral.
      • ghaff 8y ago
        Fully agree. We're really seeing two divergent trends. Fees for everything for the price-sensitive masses. And, for business travelers with status (who are at a minimum less price sensitive and typically don't pay most of the base level fees anyway), somewhat better seating as a perk, much better seating for upgrades/upsells, a premium class of airline clubs among the base level (e.g. United's Polaris Clubs), etc. And, as you say, I don't really have a problem with all this because it makes flying much more affordable for those that find the most bargain economy ticket a big expense. While I might personally enjoy it more, you don't really want a world where lie-flat seats are required on all 5+ hour flights.
    • macspoofing 8y ago
      >They've pretty much demonstrated that people make decisions based on the cheapest base fare. Nope. For example the business sector market doesn't necessarily look for cheapest fares. For that market (which is quite big) there are other considerations, like minimizing layovers, in-flight comfort, lounge access, priority boarding, etc.
      • ghaff 8y ago
        Yes, I should have said mainstream personal travel. As someone who travels mostly on business, I'm not the one picking the absolutely cheapest base fee. On the other hand, those business travelers mostly don't even care about early boarding or baggage fees anyway because they're either expensing them or get them for free because of status.
        • dingaling 8y ago
          You are very fortunate. I often flew trans-Atlantic for a former company and their travel secretary was under instructions to find the absolute cheapest fare without consideration. So I occasionally ended-up with weird connections in Manchester or Newark instead of a non-stop from Dublin. Economy class, of course.
    • njarboe 8y ago
      Southwest has continued to grow over decades of airline bankruptcies, mergers, and pricing shenanigans. If you are a first class or business traveler, that is what the other airlines are focusing on, go with them. If you are just a regular flyer, southwest focuses on your demographic. Things they do that almost no other US carrier does. Two checked bags are free, good to cheapest fares, same price whether you buy a one-way or round trip, cancel your flight anytime and get full credit for it on your next purchase. These are great features I use all the time. I always fly them if they have non-stop flights to where I need to go.
  • monochromatic 8y ago
    Monopoly means one.
    • s73v3r_ 8y ago
      Not in the legal sense, it doesn't
  • macspoofing 8y ago
    >Is the airline industry disrupt-able enough for market forces to make changes? It has been disrupted already ... many times. Some disruptions came as a result of relaxation of certain regulations, such as allowing twin engine jets to fly over the oceans, or not forcing airlines to fly direct routes. There's also the revolution around using deep statistical modeling for capacity and route planning and scheduling. There's the business models of RyanAir and Emirates ... I mean, this industry has changed quite a bit. Flying is also cheapest AND safest it has ever been (though more uncomfortable). Seems like market forces are working just fine.
    • jpmoral 8y ago
      I think the 'safest' part is due to regulation, not market forces.
      • macspoofing 8y ago
        Regulations are certainly part of the story, but make no mistake, regulation don't work without market buy-in. If a regulation stands in opposition to market forces it will fail miserably. For example, car fuel efficiency regulations tend to lead to cheating, and non-compliance (which leads to non-enforcement because regulators give up on them) if they stray too far from reality. Furthermore regulations don't innovate. It took aviation engineers to design and build super-safe passenger jets, and airlines (along with engineers) to maintain them - bureaucrats don't do any of that. But yes, regulations have a place.
        • jpmoral 8y ago
          >It took aviation engineers to design and build super-safe passenger jets, and airlines (along with engineers) to maintain them - bureaucrats don't do any of that. Companies won't do that unless forced to by regulations. Also, your post that I replied to implied that it was all market forces.
          • macspoofing 8y ago
  • amyjess 8y ago
    I'd argue that Southwest already did so. This fall I recently started flying again after having not flown since 1999, and I've been making it a point to only fly Southwest because they're the only airline that's even remotely consumer friendly.
    • ddingus 8y ago
      Southwest is a pretty great experience. I wish I could use them more.
    • dnautics 8y ago
      Alaska is also quite consumer friendly, in my experience.
  • rayiner 8y ago
    The opposite of "monopoly" is not "disruption" but instead "competition." Disruption moves a market equilibrium, usually due to a fundamental change in technology. But even a market in a steady-state equilibrium are subject to market forces so long as they are sufficiently competitive. E.g. Amazon is disrupting retail. But even before Amazon existed, retail was highly competitive, with market forces driving down prices. (Indeed, there is a good argument that Amazon is decreasing competition even as it disrupts the market.)
  • tathougies 8y ago
    The airline industry has a lot of issues, but it's not a monopoly. In fact, the reason we no longer have free bags is that the industry is in a state of price war, due to competition. Airlines want to reduce their ticket costs as much as possible, and this leads to little margin on the tickets, so they save costs by not giving free bags. This helps stratify the market as well, because those who travel light (mainly business people and people who fly a lot) now pay less than they used to. Those who fly irregularly (i.e., tourists) are more willing to pay the fees.
  • monksy 8y ago
    It has been: 1. Wow, WizzAir, and Norweigan air has created a lot of competition on the airline front and price wars. EDIT: Forgot to mention their point to point system has also benefited many towns that wouldn't dream of traveling to Europe. I've flow with Norwegian Air and I actually liked them. They're like the Southwest of transatlantic flights. The legacy carrier's response has been "we'll just lower our prices" and decrease benefits on all sides. (I.e. basic econ) 2. The newer carriers have had the money to lease new airplanes that are much more fuel efficient. I think that's where the legacy carriers have done does bad planning for the last decade. (They're just not buying 787s and they're depending on ERJ/CRJs)
    • dawnerd 8y ago
      Problem is those low cost carriers also huge prices away. They’re not always that much cheaper than the legacy carriers - especially if you’re looking at premium econ.
      • monksy 8y ago
        Depends. I frequently see after the flight is priced out. Norweigan+partners can outprice the legacy carriers. Many times they're exactly the same price. Sometime's they're a better value. (I'm looking at Southwest's ticket flexibility as a standard feature)
  • skookumchuck 8y ago
    I remember flying under the old heavily regulated airline system, where the FAA set routes, etc. Flights were often half empty. That practically never happens now. Flights are much more convenient and cheaper as a result.
• techsupporter 8y ago
  My worry with everything that the market should decide is that the market is terrible about deciding in markets where the barrier to entry is so high. When every market participant starts charging a particular fee—one that is routinely hidden during the purchasing of a product or service, like baggage charges are—then there’s no realistic choice. It’s just like binding arbitration clauses. In many industries, like mobile phone service, you can’t “choose” a market participant that doesn’t have such a clause because all of them do. When all, or virtually all (because every airline doesn’t serve every trip pair, even from a given airport), airlines charge bag fees, there’s no choice to bring a bag without some form of up-front investment or having to endure the madness that is the overhead bin zoo. On the other hand, I don’t know that banning such fees is the way to go either. I suppose I’m mostly just griping that so many things are going to pay-per-everything and the large, advertised number has decreasingly little relevance to the final, actual cost.
  • didgeoridoo 8y ago
    "The market deciding" doesn't necessarily mean new entrants. I'd mostly worry that adding too many restrictions prevents existing airlines from coming up with innovative programs & business models that benefit everyone by realigning incentives — getting to the gate earlier, checking even small bags rather than dragging a huge roller onboard and holding up the boarding process, etc. That said, these particular regulations don't seem particularly onerous.
  • zbentley 8y ago
    > It’s just like binding arbitration clauses. In many industries, like mobile phone service, you can’t “choose” a market participant that doesn’t have such a clause because all of them do. I couldn't agree more. What you are describing is a cartel, or, at a later stage, a monopoly-ish entity. Markets "where the barrier to entry is so high" sometimes snap into existence as a function of what they do, but also sometimes appear simply because it's easier to collude than compete.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
• Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
  True. Restricting which things an airline can charge for or not creates dead-weight loss. Personally, I like when airlines charge a reasonable amount for seat selection. I get really claustrophobic being on the inside seat, so with airlines that charge for it, I always get an aisle seat which is worth more to me than the money. And then people who don't care at all get a slightly subsidized ticket and sit in the middle/window seat.
  • macspoofing 8y ago
    I agree, right now there are a plethora of upgrades from a base ticket. Things like, checked-baggage, priority boarding, emergency row / extra leg-room, etc. There were times when I sprung for priority boarding or emergency row seating, and times where I didn't - and in both cases, I appreciated the option. Let people decide if they care enough about extra leg room that they are willing to throw and that extra $30 for the better seat versus not (because if free, EVERYONE would want extra leg room).
• rb808 8y ago
  I really wish they'd charge for carry-ons and make checkins free. I hate travelling in American where people are rushing into the plane, hauling huge suitcases. Flying in Asia recently was bliss without these huge bags in the overhead bins.
• petilon 8y ago
  >> this is one of those things that the market should decide. The market can only decide when consumers are fully informed of the charges before they purchase the ticket. If Expedia modifies their web site to ask if you have baggage and adds baggage fees to the displayed total then consumers are fully informed.
• maxxxxx 8y ago
  I don't care about baggage fees but they should be required to advertise the real price upfront and not add a ton of charges later.
  • kazinator 8y ago
    Everything should be transparent, so that when people search for flights, they should enter how much checked baggage they want, and all the prices they see will reflect that. Given two flights A and B, it could be the case that A is cheaper for the person who doesn't want checked luggage, whereas B is cheaper for someone who wants to check in a suitcase.
• knorker 8y ago
  Flying did get much worse as "1 free checked bag" became more rare. Now everyone wants to fly with a mountain climbing backpack, and planes regularly run out of overhead space. No, I'm not checking my $10k in camera equipment because people aren't checking their dirty tshirts.
  • xienze 8y ago
    I’m with you on people bringing bags onboard that are far too large for overhead storage, but the solution to that problem is airlines actually enforcing size restrictions.
    • wtallis 8y ago
      That's not actually a solution. The airlines have created a situation where there's an incentive for more people to bring carry-on bags than will fit in overhead storage even if all bags are within size restrictions. Stricter enforcement of the existing bag size restrictions will only slightly improve the situation. That's part of why we're starting to see a new lower class of service where you aren't allowed to bring a bag for the overhead bin.
      • wepple 8y ago
        It’s absolutely a solution. Even if the airlines create an incentive to bring carry-on, if there’s a reasonable limit to the number of items and size, everyone’s luggage will fit! This is how the rest of the world operates airlines.
        • jacques_chester 8y ago
          Hi, I'm from the rest of the world. This is not how airlines are operated. In many other countries you get one or two checked bags included in the ticket. A strange thing occurs as a consequence: you just board the plane, and then the plane goes. Do you do the weird not-a-queue-but-queueish-blob-of-people thing? No, because there is not a zero-sum game for overhead space. Do you do the pay-extra-to-spend-longer-in-the-hell-tube thing? No, because there is not a zero-sum game for overhead space. Do you spend 45 minutes to an hour fucking around with idiots who are trying to spit in the face of both geometry and physics and falling arse-first onto the nose of good manners? Not at all, flights are typically on the runway 15-20 minutes after the first boarding call. There is not a zero-sum game for overhead space. When I first flew in the USA I thought "something is wrong with my flight". It took me several flights to realise: this is normal here. And it's maddening.
• amelius 8y ago
  The problem is that prices should be transparent. When you have unexpected charges for luggage, then transparency is lost, and the market mechanism becomes defective to a great extent.
  • xienze 8y ago
    I think having separate bag fees actually increases price transparency — it’s right there in black and white when you purchase tickets. And since the price is separated out from the price of the tickets it’s harder to play a game wherein the real bag fee is hidden. And, airlines can compete on bag fees. Having to pay bag fees sucks but then again, before separate bag fees we were still paying them, we just didn’t know how much of the ticket price they really were.
    • monksy 8y ago
      It's not transparent. Unless you have the ability to construct your necessities at your destination, you can't fly without your stuff. There should be a standard definition of what a flight should include (one checked, 1 person+1carryon). What would be more transparent is to discount those who aren't flying with a carry on or checked bag. > we just didn’t know how much of the ticket price they really were. We did realize how much they were apart of the ticket. The definition of what people brought on the plane was figured into by planning at the airline. You can't just pay for more carry-ons and bags than the airline allows. Right now what we have is an artificial price drop and it's being supplemented by fees. (Airlines are pissed that they can't hide the YQ from the price anymore)
      • rayiner 8y ago
        > what a flight should include (one checked, 1 person+1 carryon). This basically forces me (who never checks anything) to subsidize your (I assume) traveling habits.
        • monksy 8y ago
          Without fees, the airline is minimizing the cost and you're cost averaging. With the fee-based structure, it's really a massive cost increase and a service/quality decrease. From what you said it's abit like saying that you don't want to subsidize the police via your taxes because you never use them.
• jimbokun 8y ago
  I think the shocking part is these regulations being generally pro-passenger and not another lobbyist authored money grab. Maybe legislation like this is passed and signed all the time, but it seems shocking to me because all of the articles I read are about laws bought and paid for by one lobbying group or another.
• yashap 8y ago
  Agreed. I strongly dislike Trump, but this bill seems very reasonable, some pretty run-of-the-mill regulations that most people would agree with, or at least be OK with.
• scarface74 8y ago
  If you don’t live near a major hub, there is about as much of a “market” for which airline you can fly to get to your destination as there is your ISP.
• xg15 8y ago
  > I'm glad. I don't like paying baggage fees (in fact, I've started to travel much more with only a carry-on partly to avoid the fees) but this is one of those things that the market should decide. Yeah, that sounds like a classic case of "not my problem, therefore it shouldn't be regulated". If some group of passagers have no choice but to fly and also have a hard minimum of baggage they need, there is no market force to keep baggage prices low. So a pure market solution would have them climb ever higher. > It's an extra revenue stream for airlines The original rationale for baggage fees is that added baggage makes plane operation more expensive. I guess, treating it as an "extra revenue stream" is at least honest, but is something that can be justified a lot less in regards if usefulness for society.
• YetAnotherNick 8y ago
  > this is one of those things that the market should decide It's easy to see that airlines are being too greedy here and taking benefit of no option left for customer. It's not market price as most people just look for the cheapest ticket. After buying it, it's basically a monopoly.