> The airline charges everyone else $50 per bag, $50 for selecting your seat, gives you $10 off for traveling with a backpack in a middle seat, and pockets $90

> The airline charges everyone else $50 per bag, $50 for selecting your seat, gives you $10 off for traveling with a backpack in a middle seat, and pockets $90 after costs And at the end of the day, operates at a pre-tax[1] profit margin of 5% (in a good year), or 0% in a bad one. If all airlines became altruistic non-profit entities tomorrow that only exist to serve their customers and nobody else, your ticket prices wouldn't drop more than ~$10-20. [1] Post-tax, it's at 2.5%, but I'm not qualified to get into whether or not there's Hollywood accounting going on.