[hamrickdavid]

Not a ton has changed for the better - but a few things have:

  1. Ticket prices have come down in real terms (especially with the advent of low cost airlines)
  2. Fuel economy on newer jets has improved
  3. Increased number of routes and frequencies
  4. Lie flat seats in business and above on long haul
  5. WiFi on planes
  6. In-flight entertainment - both seatback units and video over WiFi

[ghaff]

And you don't need to basically go into a travel agent and get a piece of paper that is incredibly hard to replace if lost.

In general, travel information is a lot more frictionless. Flight cancelled, bags lost? There's an app for that. And in general, clothing expectations mean I have to check bags a lot fewer times.

As you say, seating is better if you're willing to pay for it but I've never bought WiFi on a flight. It's one of the few opportunities I have to really read anyway.

[AnimalMuppet]

Flight information online is huge. Just yesterday[1], we had to pick someone up at the airport when their flight was 10 hours late. We got to do our waiting not at the airport. That's a game changer.

[1] Well, we were supposed to pick them up yesterday. They actually arrived today. 10 hours late on an afternoon flight is like that.

[Aloha]

Airplanes no long crash into the earth at an alarmingly frequent rate.

Like they used to sell life insurance at the airport because of both the perception of how unsafe things were and the reality of it - per Wikipedia, in 1969 there were 21 air crashes or incidents - the vast majority of which had fatalities, in 2019, there were 12, the vast majority of which had none - this on top of an order of magnitude more flights in 2019 vs 1969 - the disparity grows even further when you look back into the 50's.

[eru]

About the first and third ones, see https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AirlineDeregulation.html