Comment by Der_Einzige
1 month ago
Like others, I have zero experience with any of the things you are mentioning, but I want flying to be more expensive, more luxurious, and far more comfortable in general for everyone so please keep giving them a hard time about this.
In general, 50% or more of the people flying should not be flying, and going back to the pre-privatization era alongside much stricter regulations on seat sizes would be awesome as it would force actual economics of scale to kick in for the good seats and keep the burger king crown wearing crowd ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onib3bDo6Z0 ) off these airplanes for good.
Feel free to pay extra for the fancy seats up front, known as either first class or business class depending on the airline you're flying (I've seen other names for them like "premier" or something, too). But if you keep up the "I know what's best for other people" attitude that you display in your second paragraph, don't be surprised if people start thinking... poorly of you. (I rewrote that sentence multiple times. That's the kindest way I can put it. A lot of my earlier drafts were... more unkind).
The problem is that in the current world business class is overpriced because economics of scale don’t kick in and they know they can get away with far higher margins.
The point is to make business class the worst class of cabin, so the average cost/profitability will look a lot closer to current economy.
And yes airlines have razor thin margins. This is why privatizing them is a mistake. I the taxpayer am just fine with my tax dollars going to force the air industry to stop committing war crimes in the sky with their garbage economy seats and garbage treatment of the average flyer.
Where are you? North America? Europe? Asia? Somewhere else? I've flown quite a bit in the USA and in Asia, and airlines feel somewhat different in America vs. in Asia. (Not 100% different, of course). Oh, and I've flown a few Middle Eastern airlines (like Emirates) from time to time, and they also have a different feel. If your name is any indication, I'm guessing you're in Germany or Austria, in which case I don't know what the airlines act like where you live. (Last time I was in Europe was over 20 years ago). But how airlines treat their customers does vary quite widely, in my experience, from one country to another. I quite like Korean Airlines, though they're never the cheapest available — and I'll sometimes be willing to pay an extra $150-200 (on a $1000 ticket across the Pacific) to fly Korean Airlines rather than, say, China Eastern. (A colleague once got stuck on the ground for fourteen hours on a China Eastern flight because the airline hadn't paid their airport fees and the airport wouldn't let them pull up to the terminal and disembark until the airline paid the airport. Have to let planes land, that's a safety issue... but they're under no obligation to let the planes pull up to the terminal without paying. My colleague's experience made me swear off flying China Eastern forever.)
But every airline I've flown has had different price options, usually three or four, within economy class: cheapest option (picked by nearly everyone) where you can't cancel, slightly more expensive option where you get more flexible cancellation policies, even more expensive option where you get more benefits (details vary widely from airline to airline, but sometimes include "slightly fancier seats", i.e. there's a mid-grade section that's fancier than economy but less fancy than business class), and so on. So if you want better seats, it's a matter of picking an airline that offers that mid-grade seat section, and paying a bit extra for it.
As for razor-thin margins, that means people are paying about as low prices as possible for airline tickets. GOOD. That means they're able to fly cheaply. And if they want to trade off some convenience for cheaper prices, that's no reason for you to complain about their decisions. You still have the option of paying more for fancier seats, right?
But when you say you want to "make business class the worst class of cabin", I can't help but remember that you said that 50% of the people flying "should not be flying", and suspect you of not wanting the hoi polloi to be flying, because flying should be reserved for the Special People like you. If I'm misunderstanding your meaning, GOOD, and sorry for misunderstanding you. But if I've understood you correctly, then there just aren't any polite words I can think of to express my opinion of that terrible, elitist worldview. Hopefully I'm just misunderstanding you, and you'll explain what you actually meant.
Oh how the middle class hates having to share with the poor.
We don’t mind the rich flying private jets, but for the love of god don’t put a poor person next to us on a plane.
This but unironically.
The rich smell better than I do. I can learn from them.