How do you draw the line between "cutting frills that nobody really cares about" and "enshitification"? Prior to airline deregulation air travel was luxurious[1]:

>BERAS: But it's not just that the planes were more spacious. Back then, the airlines would go out of their way to compete with each other on amenities.

>MALONE: Right. Like, the plane we're on, it had a lounge in the back. You might get a six-course meal or a fancy cocktail included.

>BERAS: Plus, all kinds of other perks, like custom playing cards delivered in a fancy case, shaving kits delivered in a fancy case, cigarettes delivered in a fancy case.

>MALONE: Yeah. And, you know, as we get into the '70s, the amenities got ridiculous. Airlines even had meat carving stations, so flight attendants would roll the meat right up to you and carve it up right there in front of you at your seat.

>BERAS: But perhaps the pinnacle of all amenities was...

>VAN DER LINDEN: They had a piano bar, an honest-to-God piano.

But air fares dropped after deregulation, after much of these perks were reduced[2]. Of course, people who wanted those amenities would rather than they be bundled, because they'd be paying for it anyways and airlines could benefit from economies of scale for offering those amenities. They might even call it "enshitification", if the word was around back then. But most people would rather that their experience be a little crappier but save a few hundred bucks on airfare instead.

[1] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197960905

[2] https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/3rdparty/2013/2...

I am pretty comfortable it contributes to revenue and profit outcomes the board likes.

Best bet is finding out which airline treats you best and going all the way to a loyalty card with them or something I guess? that seems to work out a little better

Lowe middle income people in lower middle income countries can afford to fly somewhat regularly, and even internationally, too.

Flying used to be just for the rich only as far back as the 60s, and for nobody as far back as 200 years...

Yes.

An example is paid baggage. It used to be that stowage space was mostly a waste of capacity on an airplane. But with the help of modern software making coordinating shipping easier, they can make lucrative money shipping cargo on passenger flights.

So encouraging passengers to not bring bags and keeping that capacity for cargo is a feature, not a bug.

No. There is no competitive advantage. If they don't implement price discrimination, they go bankrupt. If they do implement price discrimination, they still go bankrupt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_bankruptcies_i....

I never liked flying, but was able to put up with it better when I was younger.

Nowadays, I get some satisfaction by leveraging credit card points through my business to get "free" tickets. I mentally steel myself to the unpleasantness of the airport, boarding, and flying, and try to get as much work done on my laptop as possible when I am sitting down so at least I can feel that I accomplished something by the time I reach my destination.

That's avoidable. If you are a citizen of an advanced economy flying to another you can just use the automatic passport gates.

Let's take the one of the items as an example: I rarely rebook, so I'm presumably benefiting from this price discrimination. Why should I support that it be forcibly bundled? I might be sympathetic to having some sort of baseline fare for advertising purposes, so it's not a race to the bottom to get the lowest sticker price, but I can't see how it's justified to limit consumer choice by disallowing the sale of restricted fares.

If you're the seller, then it's easy to filter out customers who don't fit into category A, with pricing. For the customer it's harder to filter out sellers who don't fit into category B, but generally you won't find them if you're looking for a bargain.

If passengers are forced to pack lightly because they have to pay extra fees is actually a win-win-win for everyone. Plus it is less discriminatory because my airfare is not subsidizing someone else abuse of the system.

Same goes with food. I want the option to not pay for the shitty airline food.

What's your basis for this?

Note: it's a content marketing article on a blog of a company dealing with airline refunds, so it makes sense, you're probably right.

The airline sector had this memory of its "hey days" - but the price has conviniently been forgotten.

From my perspective I would love if the airlines would skip entertainment systems and food on long haul flights. I use my phone for l entertainment, and see the value of airline food as a negative value (i try to fast when I travel, but I am bad at declining food).

But from what I understand, the article is saying that the problem is that the worse product is _artificially_ worse, in a way that is not commensurate with quid pro quo consumption like we're used to.

If I pay less for a Macbook with worse specs, that's "good" price discrimination, because Apple gets to give me something of intrinsically lower value that it cost them less to produce, and I give them something of lower value (less money) that it cost me less to acquire.

But an airline _creating_ a bunch of hoops for you to jump through (the article lists "no advance seat assignment, no ticket changes, last boarding group, baggage restrictions") in an effort to cause people whom they can juice for a little more cash to identify themselves, is scammy and scummy behavior. I don't want to see companies purposefully making my life worse in order to juice me for as much as they can.

I usually think of price discrimination as the first- or third-degree types (how they define them in the article), that is, charging people different amounts based on how much you think they are willing to or can pay, not on any differentiation of the product. That practice always sounded dirty and dishonest to me.

I wasn't aware that something like basic economy could be considered (second-degree, using their terminology) price discrimination; to me that's just offering a different product, with different features and different quality, at a different price. That honestly seems entirely reasonable to me; basic economy is just a different class of service, similar to how business class is different from economy class. I don't think of biz/first class as price discrimination; to me it's just selling a different, higher-quality product for a higher price.

Yes, due to improved technology and equipment and because prices have been historically very high.

> most airlines operating at a razor margin

No, many airlines operate in imperfect markets and reap excessive profits compared to other airlines.

1. airline ticket holder minutes wasted due to flight delays and cancelations.

2. amount of jet fuel wasted on empty flights for the purpose of keeping gate privileges.

3. money spent attempting to acquire or merge with other airlines and attendant FTC defense preparation.

4. (any and all other wastes of revenue that do not get invested in the consumer and instead are paid by the consumer).

There is more to the story than the price per mile. And that's not even opening the can of worms that is the quality and comfort of the flight for the consumer...

I saw the article use the term "legacy carrier", and was curious about its actual definition, and while skimming its wikipedia article read that we went from ten major US carriers in 1991 to just four today (Alaska/Hawaiian, American, Delta, United). Oof.

While many great things did come from deregulation, US airlines' tendencies to race to the bottom and consolidate are not among them. To be fair, though, the more consolidation, the less competition, and the less of a need for that race.

So I'm not sure. Certainly labor costs elsewhere contribute to significantly lower-cost routes, and flights in the US are way cheaper than they were in the 80s and prior, and I think, inflation-adjusted, they're still historically very low, perhaps at their lowest. So what's more expensive in the US? Labor, certainly. Regulation imposes a cost, perhaps more of one here than elsewhere? Are many carriers in other places in the world heavily subsidized by their governments, so they can offer cheaper fares and better service?