[jegutman]

LOL, is this "native advertising" and is it for the airlines or the companies helping you buy cheap tickets?

Airlines are in my experience among the least ethically run businesses:

* They will cancel a flight at the last minute stranding passengers because it was "undersold".

* They will delay flights for reasons that have no accountability to consumers.

* They pass on 100% of the risk of flights being on time to consumers.

* They give gate attendants authority to claim your bag is "too large" for the overhead bin even when it fits just fine. They can even claim the overhead bins are full when they are not full.

* Airlines will try to make every seat on a plane "economy-plus" (when you have already purchased a ticket, but they haven't given you a seat assignment yet) when they are overbooked and the bump the passengers that don't pay.

On the contrary I challenge airlines to find one example where they act ethically even when their incentives are not to and the law would allow them to act otherwise.

[jegutman]

This has been brewing in my mind so adding a few more:

* Canceling the return flight if you miss your fight out, even if it was an un-intentional miss.

* (not all airlines) Charging more that the cost of a round-trip ticket for a one-way ticket.

* Making it intentionally difficult to report a problem: Hiding customer service phone numbers, having 1500 character limits on the web forms and no e-mail customer service (to reply to a reply you have to go back to the web form).

* Having lines to check bags that take over an hour to sort through (I avoid checking bags, but not everybody I travel with does).

* Trying to sell bonus miles (correct me if I'm wrong, but these seem like they're always bad value).

* Trying to sell trip insurance (this in particular seems as overpriced as "additional insurance" at a car-rental place).

[dmalvarado]

To your last point, I have suspected this for a while. The mere fact that you care where you're seated is a signal that you're willing to pay for the change.

Airlines are going the way of ISPs. Monopolies that just don't care how annoyed they make you.

[jegutman]

Well, unlike ISPs they don't really make any money. They have many unnecessary regulatory burdens as well. I will say some of the regulation they face is from their actions. Industries that find it incapable to do the right thing in the absence of regulation are often the ones that end up the most heavily regulated and it doesn't really solve the problem either.

As for the seat. It's not about caring about your seat, because the seats on the flight that sticks out in my mind were pretty much indistinguishable. It was a 2x2 plane and there were like dozens of "empty" seats to choose from even though the flight was over-sold by one person. I refused to pay and then ended up being the one getting bumped (although in this case it worked out in my favor since I got bumped to the next morning and got paid 4x my fare). They do not make it obvious when you're purchasing that you do not have a seat either, they just "skip" that stage and don't give you one. Very misleading.