6 ms·

Ive been saying for years that airlines should do this. Add the price of an alcoholic beverage to everyone's ticket and then give those who want one a "free" dr

Ive been saying for years that airlines should do this. Add the price of an alcoholic beverage to everyone's ticket and then give those who want one a "free" drink. I never understood why they opted to go with ruthless cuts and declining customer experience.

socketnaut 6y ago
Because most people search fares online and book the cheapest ticket.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  That actually does not disprove the GP's point. People do this when the price difference is too high, or when they don't know of any difference of value on both options. Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other, so it makes no sense not to go with the cheapest (even then, the flight schedule matters). That is not reason for a company to not differentiate itself. (But I am very skeptical that a free drink would be enough of a difference.)
  - Jommi 6y ago
    >Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other, so it makes no sense not to go with the cheapest Where are you getting this? Tons of airlines provide varying levels of service/amenities. Only thing that is homogeneous is that you get from A to B. I think you are onto something there, but you should have phrased it another way. E.g. I think airlines were caught in a devils agreement with air travel search engines. They gave them access to their flights, and the search engines had to find the simplest qualities to compare fares on. That usually meant price. So you have tons of airlines with no clear value proposition differences in a search result, and it leads to the equilibrium being a devastating fight for lowest price.
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      Getting from A to B is the most important service an airline provides. The seats are always cramped, so the degree doesn't matter terribly. Even on their website, I can't search by "flight has power outlets". Nor is the wifi speed available, or even consistent. Maybe the problem is that airlines don't have a value prop relative to each other at all.
      - Jommi 6y ago
        It might well be, but we can't be sure, because just like you said that info is not available in an easily comparable form. It's gonna be interesting to see the growth of new airlines now that COVID is a thing. Low prices seem to be a given, but customers are expecting service that accommodates their new fears related to air flight.
      - gfxgirl 6y ago
        Wow, I have a very different experience than you. I've noticed vast differences in airlines, how cramped they are, the cleanliness of their planes, the amenities inside the plane, the quality of the food offerings, even the attitude of the staff . And, having experienced all these different airlines, when I'm on a route i've been before I'm apt to pick the airline that gave me the best experience if other things are relatively comparable (price/time) Even on the same airline, often there are partnerships. For example JAL/American and ANA/United I'm make sure to book the fight run by the Japanese partner not the American partner and the experience will be night and day. The Japanese plane will be clean the USA plane will be less clean. The Japanese staff will be friendly and service oriented. The USA staff will make me feel like I'm a burden on them and they'd rather be doing anything than their job. The food, even though it's airplane food, will be higher quality on the Japanese airline. Etc...
      - vkou 6y ago
        You can't search for "Flight has power outlets" because the airline doesn't necessarily know that the flight will have power outlets until the day of the flight. They aren't going to advertise "Flight has an 80% chance of having power outlets". And likewise, they don't want to deal with customers complaining that a power outlet flight did not, indeed have power outlets.
  - et-al 6y ago
    > Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other Southwest has a pretty loyal following since you can "refund" a ticket for Southwest credit good for a year. Alaska and Delta don't charge for bike fees (they're just priced like ordinary luggage). And aside from maybe 1K members, I don't know anyone who enjoys flying United.
- adrianmonk 6y ago
  Do they? I certainly don't behave that way. Fares are definitely something I factor in heavily, but a $10 difference isn't something I consider significant. Long before that point, I start looking at other factors like departure and arrival times and whether I like the airline. For example, I just did a quick search, and for $25 more total round trip, I can get nonstop flights both ways. I didn't specify nonstop as a search filter (since there are few nonstop flights between these two cities), but now that I know it's only $25 more, I'd pick that.
  - anthonypasq 6y ago
    Most people dont fly often enough to have brand preferences about airlines.
vorpalhex 6y ago
Many people want the absolute cheapest ticket because having an expensive ticket doesn't really improve your life at all, at least on domestic flights.
- greedo 6y ago
  I'm tall, so more legroom is essential when I fly. That means I usually need to upgrade (if I can't swing an exit row seat). So yes, an expensive ticket really does improve my life, for a short period of time.
ip26 6y ago
Because they are competing against other airlines to show you the lowest ticket price. Price has been shown to be the only factor most people consider when buying airline tickets.
jonny_eh 6y ago
Amusement parks are less competitive for entry price. Most cities are lucky if they have one within driving distance. Flights on the other hand are very competitive on price.
ngold 6y ago
I've heard about people paying for booze on planes. But for some reason in all the dozens of times I've flown. Never paid to get drunk on a plane? Think the last flight I took was 3 years ago, so don't know what has changed. I do only fly on the west coast though.
- Zelizz 6y ago
  I think there's free alcohol on international flights, but you pay for it in domestic flights.
  - hadlock 6y ago
    Generally in my experience with international, you get one or two alcoholic beverages served with each meal (even Spirit airlines will give you a glass of red/white which I thought was impressive considering how stingy they are), and I think the flight attendants are allowed considerably more leeway on handing out free drinks. I've only paid for drinks on international a handful of times. International flights are also significantly more profitable than short haul, so that might have some impact too.
thayne 6y ago
As someone who doesn't drink alcohol, I hate that idea.
beamatronic 6y ago
Hawaiian Airlines offered free Mai Tais when getting close to HNL, for a long time. They used to have metal forks too. And they had great food too, included! I didn’t mind paying a premium to fly Hawaiian. Then they implemented cost cutting measures. Now I just fly whoever is cheapest.
- battery_cowboy 6y ago
  Yes! Hawaiian was great for years, then they reduced the service considerably. Now, even locals who want to support locals don't fly Hawaiian because there's cheaper flights that have about the same service level.
WalterBright 6y ago
> I never understood The airlines are masters at A/B testing and figuring out what works best, as the industry is notoriously low margin and very cut-throat. You can bet that they price things this way because it works better. BTW, people pay a lot extra for first class tickets and love the "free" drinks. Different classes is how the airlines optimize profits from different market segments. They're very good at this.
- listenallyall 6y ago
  "Masters of A/B testing" is, in my opinion, a gross overstatement. However what is true, is that a large number of people will automatically choose the lowest available option among airfares, without considering comfort or amenities. When your product is efficiently lined up against your competitors, sorted by price alone, (i.e. Expedia, Kayak...), then being second-place by $3 is enough to impact sales volume. It's one of the primary reason airlines have moved so much of the total cost out of the ticket price, and on to additional fees: luggage, food, seat selection, printing a boarding pass, etc.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    That underestimates how sophisticated the airline's slicing and dicing of the market is. Ever wonder why no two people on a flight paid the same price? Why there are a proliferation of classes on board?
    - listenallyall 6y ago
      Beyond economy class, of course the price is less of a factor (didn't realize that needed to be stated). "No two people paid the same price" is a myth, most certainly not true. Ever book 2+ seats at the same time? Airlines do use yield management techniques, however, which results in pricing that changes for the same resource over time. That's not A/B testing, and like anything that relies on a lot of forecasts as inputs, bad forecasts up front often lead to sub-optimal revenue totals.
      - 6y ago
grecy 6y ago
> Ive been saying for years that airlines should do this Alcoholic drinks are free on every one of the ~100 long-haul international flights I've ever taken, even in cattle class.
jeromegv 6y ago
For a while, Porter Airlines (Canada) would offer free coffee + free cookies out of their terminal in Toronto. They would also offer you a free beer (a full 500ml, not the 341ml one) on the flight if this was an afternoon/evening flight. I feel that a lot of their expansion was just the word of mouth "OH AND THEY GIVE YOU FREE COOKIES". Their flight might have been a bit more expensive, but the amount of good will they got from those free items was huge and for a while Porter was really what people preferred. Then they sold their terminal and started leasing it, and now suddenly, no more free coffee and free cookies. I don't know if the free beer is still around but for a while we had everyone complain on how "they no longer have free cookies". And then we just stopped hearing about it because people just didn't care about Porter anymore, you would just get the cheapest flight and that would typically not be them and it's not like they were offering something special anymore. It looks to me that this was probably not a super huge expense that was probably giving them a much higher ROI than the pure $ value of what it cost them.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  That's sad. I used to go to NYC from Toronto for work once every month or two and I always flew Porter, and it was the best. The cookies and coffee was a nice touch. Comfortable lounge, etc. But that was 8, 9 years ago, and the last time I flew Porter was to Burlington, VT (before they cut that route) to go skiing, and they were in the process of renovating the lounge and changing things around. There was still free coffee but the shortbread cookies were nowhere to be seen; I could see things were changing. That route was the best, BTW; I'd leave my house at 6:30am or so by taxi, get an early morning flight to Newark, take the train to Penn station, walk from there to the office and still arrive before many of my NY coworkers were at the office. Once we got bought by Google I found I could still make it to the Google NYC office in time for breakfast service. Memories :-)
- jbay808 6y ago
  For what it's worth, those were also some of the most delicious prepackaged cookies I've ever eaten. It's not just that they were free.
- gfxgirl 6y ago
a_c_s 6y ago
As someone who doesn't drink alcohol it drives me crazy when the only option is to subsidize other's alcohol (because alcohol is marked up so heavily). For people like me a paid-alcohol policy is a feature, not a bug.
- david422 6y ago
  Same for paying for luggage. I'd rather pay for bags because it means when I travel light that I'm not subsidizing other people's bags.
smabie 6y ago
Isn't this already the case? I order a beer or two on most flights and don't think I've ever been charged.
- yoz-y 6y ago
  Long haul flights have free alcohol and what not, but a lot of low cost companies charge for anything they can.
kgwgk 6y ago
Because people will buy the ticket which is $1 cheaper.
prawn 6y ago
I stayed in a hotel in Chile many years ago that included dinner in your room (anything off the menu) and the entire mini bar. It made for a great, positive experience rather than the usual situation of griping about mini bar pricing. Surprised more places don't do it, at least for non-alcoholic drinks.
user5994461 6y ago
You do not want to distribute free beer (or any alcoholic beverage) to hundreds of people confined together for hours and with limited toilets, as in a plane.

socketnaut 6y ago

Because most people search fares online and book the cheapest ticket.

marcosdumay 6y ago
That actually does not disprove the GP's point. People do this when the price difference is too high, or when they don't know of any difference of value on both options. Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other, so it makes no sense not to go with the cheapest (even then, the flight schedule matters). That is not reason for a company to not differentiate itself. (But I am very skeptical that a free drink would be enough of a difference.)
- Jommi 6y ago
  >Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other, so it makes no sense not to go with the cheapest Where are you getting this? Tons of airlines provide varying levels of service/amenities. Only thing that is homogeneous is that you get from A to B. I think you are onto something there, but you should have phrased it another way. E.g. I think airlines were caught in a devils agreement with air travel search engines. They gave them access to their flights, and the search engines had to find the simplest qualities to compare fares on. That usually meant price. So you have tons of airlines with no clear value proposition differences in a search result, and it leads to the equilibrium being a devastating fight for lowest price.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Getting from A to B is the most important service an airline provides. The seats are always cramped, so the degree doesn't matter terribly. Even on their website, I can't search by "flight has power outlets". Nor is the wifi speed available, or even consistent. Maybe the problem is that airlines don't have a value prop relative to each other at all.
    - Jommi 6y ago
      It might well be, but we can't be sure, because just like you said that info is not available in an easily comparable form. It's gonna be interesting to see the growth of new airlines now that COVID is a thing. Low prices seem to be a given, but customers are expecting service that accommodates their new fears related to air flight.
    - gfxgirl 6y ago
      Wow, I have a very different experience than you. I've noticed vast differences in airlines, how cramped they are, the cleanliness of their planes, the amenities inside the plane, the quality of the food offerings, even the attitude of the staff . And, having experienced all these different airlines, when I'm on a route i've been before I'm apt to pick the airline that gave me the best experience if other things are relatively comparable (price/time) Even on the same airline, often there are partnerships. For example JAL/American and ANA/United I'm make sure to book the fight run by the Japanese partner not the American partner and the experience will be night and day. The Japanese plane will be clean the USA plane will be less clean. The Japanese staff will be friendly and service oriented. The USA staff will make me feel like I'm a burden on them and they'd rather be doing anything than their job. The food, even though it's airplane food, will be higher quality on the Japanese airline. Etc...
    - vkou 6y ago
      You can't search for "Flight has power outlets" because the airline doesn't necessarily know that the flight will have power outlets until the day of the flight. They aren't going to advertise "Flight has an 80% chance of having power outlets". And likewise, they don't want to deal with customers complaining that a power outlet flight did not, indeed have power outlets.
- et-al 6y ago
  > Currently air travel is a completely homogeneous service. There is basically no difference from one company to the other Southwest has a pretty loyal following since you can "refund" a ticket for Southwest credit good for a year. Alaska and Delta don't charge for bike fees (they're just priced like ordinary luggage). And aside from maybe 1K members, I don't know anyone who enjoys flying United.
adrianmonk 6y ago
Do they? I certainly don't behave that way. Fares are definitely something I factor in heavily, but a $10 difference isn't something I consider significant. Long before that point, I start looking at other factors like departure and arrival times and whether I like the airline. For example, I just did a quick search, and for $25 more total round trip, I can get nonstop flights both ways. I didn't specify nonstop as a search filter (since there are few nonstop flights between these two cities), but now that I know it's only $25 more, I'd pick that.
- anthonypasq 6y ago
  Most people dont fly often enough to have brand preferences about airlines.

vorpalhex 6y ago

Many people want the absolute cheapest ticket because having an expensive ticket doesn't really improve your life at all, at least on domestic flights.

greedo 6y ago
I'm tall, so more legroom is essential when I fly. That means I usually need to upgrade (if I can't swing an exit row seat). So yes, an expensive ticket really does improve my life, for a short period of time.

ip26 6y ago

Because they are competing against other airlines to show you the lowest ticket price. Price has been shown to be the only factor most people consider when buying airline tickets.

jonny_eh 6y ago

Amusement parks are less competitive for entry price. Most cities are lucky if they have one within driving distance. Flights on the other hand are very competitive on price.

ngold 6y ago

I've heard about people paying for booze on planes. But for some reason in all the dozens of times I've flown. Never paid to get drunk on a plane? Think the last flight I took was 3 years ago, so don't know what has changed. I do only fly on the west coast though.

Zelizz 6y ago
I think there's free alcohol on international flights, but you pay for it in domestic flights.
- hadlock 6y ago
  Generally in my experience with international, you get one or two alcoholic beverages served with each meal (even Spirit airlines will give you a glass of red/white which I thought was impressive considering how stingy they are), and I think the flight attendants are allowed considerably more leeway on handing out free drinks. I've only paid for drinks on international a handful of times. International flights are also significantly more profitable than short haul, so that might have some impact too.

thayne 6y ago

As someone who doesn't drink alcohol, I hate that idea.

beamatronic 6y ago

Hawaiian Airlines offered free Mai Tais when getting close to HNL, for a long time. They used to have metal forks too. And they had great food too, included! I didn’t mind paying a premium to fly Hawaiian. Then they implemented cost cutting measures. Now I just fly whoever is cheapest.

battery_cowboy 6y ago
Yes! Hawaiian was great for years, then they reduced the service considerably. Now, even locals who want to support locals don't fly Hawaiian because there's cheaper flights that have about the same service level.

WalterBright 6y ago

> I never understood The airlines are masters at A/B testing and figuring out what works best, as the industry is notoriously low margin and very cut-throat. You can bet that they price things this way because it works better. BTW, people pay a lot extra for first class tickets and love the "free" drinks. Different classes is how the airlines optimize profits from different market segments. They're very good at this.

listenallyall 6y ago
"Masters of A/B testing" is, in my opinion, a gross overstatement. However what is true, is that a large number of people will automatically choose the lowest available option among airfares, without considering comfort or amenities. When your product is efficiently lined up against your competitors, sorted by price alone, (i.e. Expedia, Kayak...), then being second-place by $3 is enough to impact sales volume. It's one of the primary reason airlines have moved so much of the total cost out of the ticket price, and on to additional fees: luggage, food, seat selection, printing a boarding pass, etc.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  That underestimates how sophisticated the airline's slicing and dicing of the market is. Ever wonder why no two people on a flight paid the same price? Why there are a proliferation of classes on board?
  - listenallyall 6y ago
    Beyond economy class, of course the price is less of a factor (didn't realize that needed to be stated). "No two people paid the same price" is a myth, most certainly not true. Ever book 2+ seats at the same time? Airlines do use yield management techniques, however, which results in pricing that changes for the same resource over time. That's not A/B testing, and like anything that relies on a lot of forecasts as inputs, bad forecasts up front often lead to sub-optimal revenue totals.
    - 6y ago

grecy 6y ago

> Ive been saying for years that airlines should do this Alcoholic drinks are free on every one of the ~100 long-haul international flights I've ever taken, even in cattle class.

jeromegv 6y ago

For a while, Porter Airlines (Canada) would offer free coffee + free cookies out of their terminal in Toronto. They would also offer you a free beer (a full 500ml, not the 341ml one) on the flight if this was an afternoon/evening flight. I feel that a lot of their expansion was just the word of mouth "OH AND THEY GIVE YOU FREE COOKIES". Their flight might have been a bit more expensive, but the amount of good will they got from those free items was huge and for a while Porter was really what people preferred. Then they sold their terminal and started leasing it, and now suddenly, no more free coffee and free cookies. I don't know if the free beer is still around but for a while we had everyone complain on how "they no longer have free cookies". And then we just stopped hearing about it because people just didn't care about Porter anymore, you would just get the cheapest flight and that would typically not be them and it's not like they were offering something special anymore. It looks to me that this was probably not a super huge expense that was probably giving them a much higher ROI than the pure $ value of what it cost them.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
That's sad. I used to go to NYC from Toronto for work once every month or two and I always flew Porter, and it was the best. The cookies and coffee was a nice touch. Comfortable lounge, etc. But that was 8, 9 years ago, and the last time I flew Porter was to Burlington, VT (before they cut that route) to go skiing, and they were in the process of renovating the lounge and changing things around. There was still free coffee but the shortbread cookies were nowhere to be seen; I could see things were changing. That route was the best, BTW; I'd leave my house at 6:30am or so by taxi, get an early morning flight to Newark, take the train to Penn station, walk from there to the office and still arrive before many of my NY coworkers were at the office. Once we got bought by Google I found I could still make it to the Google NYC office in time for breakfast service. Memories :-)
jbay808 6y ago
For what it's worth, those were also some of the most delicious prepackaged cookies I've ever eaten. It's not just that they were free.
gfxgirl 6y ago

a_c_s 6y ago

As someone who doesn't drink alcohol it drives me crazy when the only option is to subsidize other's alcohol (because alcohol is marked up so heavily). For people like me a paid-alcohol policy is a feature, not a bug.

david422 6y ago
Same for paying for luggage. I'd rather pay for bags because it means when I travel light that I'm not subsidizing other people's bags.

smabie 6y ago

Isn't this already the case? I order a beer or two on most flights and don't think I've ever been charged.

yoz-y 6y ago
Long haul flights have free alcohol and what not, but a lot of low cost companies charge for anything they can.

kgwgk 6y ago

Because people will buy the ticket which is $1 cheaper.

prawn 6y ago

I stayed in a hotel in Chile many years ago that included dinner in your room (anything off the menu) and the entire mini bar. It made for a great, positive experience rather than the usual situation of griping about mini bar pricing. Surprised more places don't do it, at least for non-alcoholic drinks.

user5994461 6y ago

You do not want to distribute free beer (or any alcoholic beverage) to hundreds of people confined together for hours and with limited toilets, as in a plane.