3 ms·
Airlines are horrible. I would happily pay 33% more per ticket to fly on airline that removed 1/3 of the seats (middle aisle) and gave the patrons a little bit
by cookiecaper 14y ago
Airlines are horrible. I would happily pay 33% more per ticket to fly on airline that removed 1/3 of the seats (middle aisle) and gave the patrons a little bit of room. I think there's a place for that kind of airline if they market things well and add in a few other accoutrements, even though I believe just giving business guys room to maneuver their laptops without jutting elbow-deep into the fat of their neighbor (or themselves, as the case may be), will win you all the business accounts by itself.
- nkoren 14y agoAirlines won't do that, and here's why. As you correctly point out, the seats in the back of the plane are horribly, awfully cramped, making it impossible for business guys to manoeuvre their laptops without elbowing each other. This is intentional, because it induces those businesspeople who are both sufficiently desperate and have the money to spend, to pay for the much higher-margin seats at the front of the plane. That's the main reason why flying coach is such crap. So, you might think that removing 1/3rd of the seats and charging 33% more would be a revenue-neutral proposition, but it wouldn't be. Passengers who currently fly at the front of the plane would look at the cosier seats in the back and think "hey, actually -- I can live with that". Business-class passengers won't pay for seats at the front of the plane unless the seats in the back are sufficiently awful. Because the seats at the front of the plane are much higher-margin, the airline would lose money as a result. (This isn't my own home-brewed conspiracy theory; this is based on reading Harvard Business School case studies. The things one learns whilst studying price discrimination theory during an MBA...)