[CompelTechnic]

For short flights, I do not mind the development of "standing seats." Airline margins will remain razor thin and the savings will be passed to the subset of customers who choose to be more cramped. There WILL continue to be "premium economy" or similar for those who choose it, that is undoubtable.

If the price sensitivity tradeoff of customers ultimately dictates that these standing seats do not gain adoption, I would not be surprised.

History has shown that customers want cheap flights more than they want comfort, but complaining all the while.

[PaulHoule]

I don't believe that "customers want cheap flights more than they want comfort".

Really customers have about as much choice in the comfort of a flight as they do in the cost of health care services.

For years it has been "pay 4 times as much as economy or suffer", in the last ten years they've introduced "basic economy" which at least is realistic.

I might rather fly in a widebody on a domestic flight but I don't get the choice. One reason you hate to fly is that you hate to fly in a 737 (or A320) and you never get to fly in anything else so you just don't know it could be better (at a lower cost per seat mile!) in an A220 or E195.

[mlrtime]

People vote with their dollars, many legs have multiple options and multiple seat options. Almost everyone goes with the cheapest option.

I've flow from NYC to Chicago $90 round trip. It's incredible how inexpensive flying as become.

[ken]

Tell me by what means I can "vote with my dollars". Is there a travel site where I can sort flights by seat pitch?

I see options to sort by price, by airline, by number of minutes in the air, or by number of transfers, but I've never seen the option to sort by seat pitch. Half the time, it's nearly impossible to even figure out what kind of aircraft it will be.

I choose by price because it's the most relevant of the limited and mostly useless options that we're given.

Personal space is a competitive advantage. Hotels get this. The website for the nearest hotel to me has a top-level "ROOMS" page, with photographs and square footage of every room. I will pay a little more because I know what I'm getting. With air travel, I have no way of knowing which flight will pack me in like a sardine, so I might as well save the money and spend it on a hot meal at the end to recover.

[rootusrootus]

I've been trying to vote with my dollars for a long time. The problem is that what used to be economy is now premium and it costs twice what the current economy seats cost. There is no gradient, it's cattle class or $$$$$

[namdnay]

Yes but economy today is half the price of what it was 30 years ago!

[rootusrootus]

And since 2005 they've been rising.

[brutus1213]

This is a naive comment. The airline industry is hardly competitive. You do realize the issue is the limits on gates. Please visit Canada and our shitty airline and telecom monopoly/oligopoly to understand how airlines can lower service, make money and pass almost nothing back to customers.

[PaulHoule]

What I can say is that if you to any other country, developed or not, the flying experience seems to be better than the US. For instance:

* not getting groped by the T.S.A.

* not having to book a flight a month in advance to get a good price

* paying less

* being treated like a human being

[brianwawok]

TSA precheck solves the first one

[mttyng]

Yeah, but it “solves” it at a monetary and privacy cost (albeit relatively small for the former).

It bothers me that we tolerate various personal possessions (in this instance privacy) being taken away and then given back, generously (/s), for a small fee. I would rather be groped and spoken down to then hand more information/money over to another poorly-managed organization.

Moreover, the Airline-Security group has always been reactive rather than proactive. I don’t see how TSA pre-check prevents anything in the first place. What’s to stop someone from deciding at some point after the Pre-Check process that they want to create havoc on a flight? Nothing. Then we’ll have Super-Pre-Check, for only $190 and this time you “only have to” give a DNA swab. Sorry for the cynicism, etc, but I doubt I’m alone in calling the whole thing a facade.

Anyway, I forgot my initial point, but there’s my rant.

[cannonedhamster]

No it doesn't. If the precheck lanes are closed you get to go through the regular line first. That's it. Add to that, there is no evidence to show that our intrusive security is any better than the former metal detectors that existed prior. Flying is needlessly impacted. It's theater as it's trivially easy to bypass most security measures in place and get weapons on board all you want. The best security measure that was implemented was locking the cockpit during flight. It's the only one that made any real improvement in security and it cost nothing.

[scottlocklin]

Not living in and avoiding visits to a surveillance dystopia also solves this problem.

[argv_empty]

I'm fine with paying a bit extra for more comfort and better service on a flight, but anything short of double the cost of the cheapest coach-class ticket never seems to get me that.

[PaulHoule]

Soon after the 2008 financial crisis I flew from Ithaca NY to Washington DC multiple times for about $100.

These flights went through what is now American's hub in Philly.

I thought, gee, I'd like to take my son to Philly but then I found they charged $400 for the flight from ITH to PHL.

When the pricing obviously is disjoint from the cost to provide the service, the airline industry just can't expect us to take anything they say about pricing and service seriously. It's just like it is with these pharmacy benefit managers.

[duiker101]

Given the option, I will rarely go with a more expensive option if I know I can stand the cheapest. Standing to get 50%? hell yeah.

[hourislate]

>For short flights, I do not mind the development of "standing seats."

There are always those customers who would be willing to sit in the luggage hold or lay in the overhead bin or hang onto the wing to save $10.

But these new seating choices remind me of my train travel through Poland in the late 70's on my way to the USSR. I bought a first class ticket to Ukraine from Warsaw and when it pulled into the station there were people climbing through windows while folks used the doors to exit. By the time I got to my 1st class cabin there were about 15 people in there (seating for 6 comfortably). I had to stand in the aisle for about 8 hours overnight hanging on. Good Times...Good Times....LOL...

[TheCondor]

We need hyperloop to work and national high speed rail to offer alternatives and competition. I do a 2 hour flight, about 1000 miles for work once or twice a quarter, I’d seriously consider a 4-6 hour train ride if the experience was better. Rather than paying extra to carry my bag on, I wouldn’t mind paying extra for a proper meal and some comfortable work space. And if they streamlined the security process the time difference would be that much smaller.

[ghaff]

Do you have TSA Pre? Security normally takes me about 5-10 minutes. I do prefer the experience taking the train but there's only about one destination a few hundred miles away where it makes sense.

[cannonedhamster]

So the solution to you is that citizens should pay for the privilege of giving up their right to privacy so that the government can pretend it's doing something more than it was before. What does pre check do that they didn't already know? It's frankly mind boggling that people aren't up in arms over how plainly silly the idea that the TSA makes you safer than it was too fly before. It's the same people with more toys, less training, and more stress. The solution is to make the security meet the actual risk. Current airport security is more about making money than it is about security.

[brotoss]

Delta's NET income for 2018 was $3.95 billion dollars

[mikybee93]

Apparently they have over 180 million passengers a year[0]. That means that, at most, they're making $7 per passenger. It's not like they're gouging their customers.

[0]https://news.delta.com/corporate-stats-and-facts

[PaulHoule]

It doesn't mean that aren't stuck in vicious circles.

For instance, Boeing has dumped 737 MAX planes (and duped regulators, endangered passengers, ...) to fight off advanced competitors such as the A220 and Gen2 E195.

Smaller less-capitalized companies have done the right thing and embraced innovation, somehow Boeing decided that international widebody passengers deserve better planes but that narrowbody passengers should suffer and that neoliberals will parrot that "there is no alternative".

Modern airliners can be smaller than the 737 bit have much better passenger comfort and lower seat-mile costs. Boeing has to let up on the anti-competitive behavior for that to happen.

[leetcrew]

with revenue in the same year of $44b, this is pretty much the average profit margin for an american business. I'm not sure which direction you're trying to argue here.