3 ms·

The concert analogy is close but not perfect because the problem is that grouping necessarily puts you into premium seats. If they can sell aisle and window se

by pxx 4y ago

The concert analogy is close but not perfect because the problem is that grouping necessarily puts you into premium seats. If they can sell aisle and window seats at a premium, you can't allow people to group for free without putting people in relatively more premium seats for free. The scale of airline seats (on a single flight) and concert tickets is incredibly different anyway, and different forms of price discrimination are required.

mindslight 4y ago
Southwest is an example of general admission applied to airline seating. By the time you're calling non-middle seats "premium", we've already lost. We should aim to have markets that provide abundance rather than focusing on extraction through things like price discrimination. It's indefensible that they sell seats which then aren't actually big enough to fit a person, whether it be their legs or their arms - this is essentially the entire setup of "middle seats". If they wanted to charge linearly based on dimensions, I'd understand that. But the general pattern with price discrimination is that they charge outsized amounts for slightly more use, because they know they have you over a barrel. See also: dinosaur ISP data caps.
- partdavid 4y ago
  There's no airline seat that can't "fit a person", that's hyperbole. Fit any person, maybe. Fit without touching the person next to you, maybe. Fit without negotiating who uses the armrest or shared spaces with a stranger, maybe. I fly frequently, I'm 6'2", I'm obese. I fit into a middle seat. Don't love it, it's not the nicest, but it's less cramped than any public transit seat and most theater seats.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    By your definition, it would be fine for them to sell the seat that was your lap to someone else, since your body still has enough volume to exist. I've often flown in seats where I had to spread my legs (eg into the aisle) so my knees were not pressed up against the seat in front of me. And on most flights, my shoulders are over the armrests. Talking about "the" armrest nicely demonstrates how much we've been saturated by their nonsense. As I said, I'd have no problem if airlines charged as a linear combination of your weight and the dimensions of your seat. But rather the setup is to gouge an outsized price for a comparatively small amount of additional room, because they'll catch people at the margins over a barrel.
rtkwe 4y ago
The idea that everything that can be differentially priced should is really annoying and leads to BS like this where everyone's life is worse to marginally increase profits.

by pxx 4y ago

mindslight 4y ago

Southwest is an example of general admission applied to airline seating. By the time you're calling non-middle seats "premium", we've already lost. We should aim to have markets that provide abundance rather than focusing on extraction through things like price discrimination. It's indefensible that they sell seats which then aren't actually big enough to fit a person, whether it be their legs or their arms - this is essentially the entire setup of "middle seats". If they wanted to charge linearly based on dimensions, I'd understand that. But the general pattern with price discrimination is that they charge outsized amounts for slightly more use, because they know they have you over a barrel. See also: dinosaur ISP data caps.

partdavid 4y ago
There's no airline seat that can't "fit a person", that's hyperbole. Fit any person, maybe. Fit without touching the person next to you, maybe. Fit without negotiating who uses the armrest or shared spaces with a stranger, maybe. I fly frequently, I'm 6'2", I'm obese. I fit into a middle seat. Don't love it, it's not the nicest, but it's less cramped than any public transit seat and most theater seats.
- mindslight 4y ago
  By your definition, it would be fine for them to sell the seat that was your lap to someone else, since your body still has enough volume to exist. I've often flown in seats where I had to spread my legs (eg into the aisle) so my knees were not pressed up against the seat in front of me. And on most flights, my shoulders are over the armrests. Talking about "the" armrest nicely demonstrates how much we've been saturated by their nonsense. As I said, I'd have no problem if airlines charged as a linear combination of your weight and the dimensions of your seat. But rather the setup is to gouge an outsized price for a comparatively small amount of additional room, because they'll catch people at the margins over a barrel.

rtkwe 4y ago

The idea that everything that can be differentially priced should is really annoying and leads to BS like this where everyone's life is worse to marginally increase profits.