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So, yeah, I recently learned about Westjet while visiting Ireland, and my first thought was "ah, OK, so Canada's RyanAir, eh?" And they seem to be following th

So, yeah, I recently learned about Westjet while visiting Ireland, and my first thought was "ah, OK, so Canada's RyanAir, eh?" And they seem to be following the very same media playbook: make outrageous statements about some kind of insane fees they're going to introduce (like the famous RyanAir toilet-use add-on) to emphasize how cheap they are. Anyway, the ever-ongoing enshittification in the air-travel space is entirely to blame on the consumers -- the people could stop this nonsense at any time, but apparently they're fine with it, so...

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
> Anyway, the ever-ongoing enshittification in the air-travel space is entirely to blame on the consumers -- the people could stop this nonsense at any time, but apparently they're fine with it, so... How? I suppose the answer is to stop flying, I basically don't fly already, so that'd be fine with me but, if you are a flyer, in Canada we have Air Canada and Westjet if you're flying domestic. I suppose we could stop buying economy seats, but "premium" doubles the price.
- deleted 1y ago
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- Marsymars 1y ago
  I wish premium were only double the price, I’d exclusively fly premium if that were the case. e.g. checking a random round-trip nonstop YYC<->YHZ flight in a couple months, it’s $687 for economy and $2391 for premium economy.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    Oh, wow, I didn't know it was that bad, I just looked at YEG -> YYC, again, not much of a flyer, but yeah, your choices are paying truly exorbitant prices or putting up with whatever abuse they want to heap on you. It's not like $687 is in any way cheap.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > wish premium were only double the price, I’d exclusively fly premium if that were the case This seems to be broadly true, and the driver behind at least American airlines expanding their middle and front cabins.
AlotOfReading 1y ago
The important difference from Ryanair is that the average WestJet fare is more than 3x the average Ryanair fare. Consumers are willing to tolerate a lot of bad service in exchange for a good price. Canadian airlines specialize in bad service for bad prices.
hobs 1y ago
Usually when you have a tragedy of the commons then regulation is better at fixing it then deciding all consumers at once need to work in concert.
badc0ffee 1y ago
It's not like RyanAir at all. It's a major carrier that competes directly with Air Canada and is not cheap. A better comparison in Canada would be Flair.

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago

> Anyway, the ever-ongoing enshittification in the air-travel space is entirely to blame on the consumers -- the people could stop this nonsense at any time, but apparently they're fine with it, so... How? I suppose the answer is to stop flying, I basically don't fly already, so that'd be fine with me but, if you are a flyer, in Canada we have Air Canada and Westjet if you're flying domestic. I suppose we could stop buying economy seats, but "premium" doubles the price.

deleted 1y ago
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Marsymars 1y ago
I wish premium were only double the price, I’d exclusively fly premium if that were the case. e.g. checking a random round-trip nonstop YYC<->YHZ flight in a couple months, it’s $687 for economy and $2391 for premium economy.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  Oh, wow, I didn't know it was that bad, I just looked at YEG -> YYC, again, not much of a flyer, but yeah, your choices are paying truly exorbitant prices or putting up with whatever abuse they want to heap on you. It's not like $687 is in any way cheap.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > wish premium were only double the price, I’d exclusively fly premium if that were the case This seems to be broadly true, and the driver behind at least American airlines expanding their middle and front cabins.

AlotOfReading 1y ago

The important difference from Ryanair is that the average WestJet fare is more than 3x the average Ryanair fare. Consumers are willing to tolerate a lot of bad service in exchange for a good price. Canadian airlines specialize in bad service for bad prices.

hobs 1y ago

Usually when you have a tragedy of the commons then regulation is better at fixing it then deciding all consumers at once need to work in concert.

badc0ffee 1y ago

It's not like RyanAir at all. It's a major carrier that competes directly with Air Canada and is not cheap. A better comparison in Canada would be Flair.