[doodaddy]

> Instead of the clear, itemized pricing system that passengers currently rely on, airlines could hide fees until later in the booking process…

They call what we have now “clear”? Where when looking at a page of flights I don’t know how much the multitude of economy/economy+/economy++/premium economy/business/business++ seats will cost until I click on each flight? Where every carrier offers slightly different variations of these seats such that I can’t cross-shop on Google Flights?

Is that the clear and transparent system the airlines are complaining about?

[kindatrue]

Those are all optional fees.

What they want is a return to the old pre-Obama days where all the taxes and mandatory fees (government and stuff they made up) were only displayed at check out. Kind of like resort fees on hotels.

[code_for_monkey]

yeah, now imagine when its even worse

[Mistletoe]

I’ve seen the movie Brazil and I wish more people had so they would have voted better.

[dfee]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)

Looks interesting!

[pstuart]

It's a must watch movie -- there's multiple editions and you should watch the directors cut.

[lisper]

I know that "me too" comments are frowned upon, but I really feel the need to chime in here. Brazil is my favorite movie of all time. It is eerily prescient. It's important to keep in mind while watching it today that it was made forty years ago.

And yes, the director's cut. Absolutely the director's cut.

[nyc_data_geek1]

Is your form stamped? There's no stamp on it.

[thombat]

This is your receipt for your husband. And this is my receipt for your receipt.

[nyc_data_geek1]

We're all in this together, kid.

[smt88]

I'm not sure why you think that would've helped. A lot of the people who won't shut up about 1984 and Ayn Rand still vote for the closest thing to monarchy they can find on their ballots.

[wat10000]

Some people see "don't tread on me" as "don't tread on people," while others see it as "don't tread on ME specifically."

[nerdponx]

Don't tread on me but please do tread on those other people I've been indoctrinated to dislike.

[red-iron-pine]

"tread on them especially hard"

[mr_toad]

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us."

[forgotoldacc]

We're at a point where people would be glad to starve if they think it pissed someone else off.

[recursive]

I think most of them would say that right up until they could actually feel the hunger. People spend hundreds of dollars on drugs that just make them less hungry so they eat less. So I don't think so.

[ReptileMan]

Okay - democrats will push us in 1984 dystopia where they force you to accept that reality is what they tell you, and republicans will push us in low life high tech Cyberpunk dystopia where corporations reign supreme. Choose your poison.

[raddan]

Which reality is that? The real reality? Admittedly real reality is a pretty bitter pill at times.

[jacobgkau]

Maybe the one where biological sex is imaginary. Or the one where Biden's health is good enough for another four years. You pick (or keep looking the other way and losing, to the detriment of far more important issues).

[buellerbueller]

oh, like that classic Democrat line "tylenol causes autism"?

[ReptileMan]

We are talking about the same hepatotoxic compound that is absurdly easy to OD on but it gives negligible relief on stuff you should just power trough? That anecdotal - is barely better than a pacebo?

Personally - I think that the two main drivers of autism are people having kids later and too high rates of smart people intermarriage.

Of course Trump should not have said Tylenol, but paracetamol.

And there are some very mild hints in the data that they are correlated, but not enough sigmas.

And of course it could be Tylenol and something else with which ot interacts. And autism is so hard to be linked to anything because of how big the umbrella is and that we have such high delay to diagnosis that we will never know. Not taking medications when not really necessary is probably a good precaution principle

[int_19h]

Until fairly recently, stuff line anti-vax was far more common on the left. There used to be a joke that it's fairly easy to find concentrations of anti-vaxxers in US - you just need to plot locations of Whole Foods on the map and then draw a circle around each.

(To be fair, though, this was never mainstream in the Democratic party the way these things are now among the Republicans.)

[scrps]

Don't forget the inverse can happen, like when tech-bros read sci-fi and end up thinking Bad Thing is a good idea... :|

[herval]

I love/hate how many people in tech watched Black Mirror and went "that's a great idea! I'll build that"

[MangoToupe]

I see the causality as reversed: the show is based on extrapolating current tech trends to produce near-future dystopian sci-fi.

[bryanrasmussen]

geez, can you people stop tearing down the torment nexus for just one minute!

[MurkyLabs]

Ah yes, the Torment Nexus from the popular sci-fi book, "Don't build the Torment Nexus!"

[caycep]

it was worse in the 80's-90's...I guess the past few years of enjoying refunds was not meant to last...

[OhMeadhbh]

It absolutely was not worse in the 80s. Unless you mean more expensive. Yes. It DEFINITELY was more expensive. When I booked through a travel agent or over the phone with the airline, the fees were pretty transparent. I sorta feel for the airlines here because before deregulation they had to commit to unprofitable routes before they realized HOW unprofitable they would be. That cost was spread over the profitable routes and ultimately everything was more expensive. But... oh man... remember when you could get on a flight where only about 25% of the seats were filled and the food wasn't great, but was free? I remember being able to lift the arm-rests on seats up and stretch out and take a nap on the plane. Those were the days. Before American's MD/SD-80s started falling out of the sky, I would fly out to DFW from SJC each week and it was delightful.

And baggage handling systems are much better than the 80s. It's been 5 years since an airline has lost checked luggage for me. But of course, it's been 5 years since I checked luggage, so who knows? I really miss Yamato 宅配便 from when I lived in Japan. Americans really don't know how to travel correctly.

Meh. The dollar is probably going to be devalued soon so the dream of air travel for the typical American will likely only be in the rear-view mirror. We'll all be lost in wistful nostalgia about the time when normal people could afford air travel.

So... SOME things were worse in the 80s/90s. Not all things related to traveling.

[Telemakhos]

> It's been 5 years since an airline has lost checked luggage for me.

It hasn't even been two weeks for me, although my luggage arrived the next day. I remember on Slashdot hearing the advice of always packing a firearm (even a starter pistol) in checked luggage when traveling domestically—not only is it legal, but the BATFE gets involved if the airline loses your luggage, so the airline is very careful not to lose your luggage.

[ardit33]

No sure why this comment got downvoted. The 90s were more of no hidden fees at all. You paid the ticket, and that's it. Usually 2 baggages were included in the flight (standard), and food was free. US inland trips had crappy snacks, and some soda, but international ones all had food and drinks, including alcoholic ones.

Prices of tickets were more expensive for sure, so air travel was more of a luxury.

The era of the hidden fees started during the late Bush era, and with the advents of online booking, and with the rise of the 'cheap airlines' like RyanAir, Spirit, etc...

They had hidden fees as part of their busisness model. The larger carriers started following suit with more restricitons for the cheapest base tickets (no luggage) and more fees for things that used to be included before.

This is completely different from the 90s, which you paid and things were more upfront.

[caycep]

I could have gotten my decades wrong. I just remember not being able to get refunds by default, and then it was a glorious past several years where JetBlue and southwest would automagically refund my tickets back to my credit card.

[OhMeadhbh]

Not sure what "Default" means in this context. When American canceled flights in the 90s, you had to ask for a refund. If you didn't, they would give you a flight voucher or a ticket on the next scheduled flight. If you wanted a cash refund, you had to explicitly ask for it. I'm okay with that and often took the next available flight instead of the cash. But I don't know how much of that was AA policy and how much was required by law.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

This is a pro level feature set. I don't think most flyers feel bilked that they can't do this. Absolute price sensitivity (meaning bottom line, not "cheapest business class") is the factor for most people and that is easy to see on any of the flight search engines.

[bluGill]

For most perhaps, but I want to know what I'll really pay. I already know I'm going to check luggage (or not, but now that I have kids and am going for longer vacations checked bags is not something I'll do without), so I want to see the price with checked bags. Likewise I know I'm willing to pay for the legroom of economy plus (the rest of my family doesn't care, though my kids are soon hit their final growth and soon will). I've just added $1000 to my actually price, but all I see is the per person ticket price with no options...

There is a reason I took Amtrak last vacation. Too bad they doen't go do where my next vacation will be.

[lumost]

Not to mention the lack of standards on leg room/entertainment packages/food quality for any of the above combinations on any airline!

[SpaceNoodled]

I literally don't fit in certain carriers' seats because my legs are longer than their seat pitch.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

You want regulations on in-flight entertainment packages??

[FinnKuhn]

At least Google flights shows you an estimate for the airline

[supertrope]

You can always buy an economy plus ticket.

[jacobgkau]

The point wasn't minimums, it was that you don't even know what an "economy plus ticket" will get you since it's not standardized.

[JustExAWS]

Well rule #1 is never to book a flight on a third party travel portal. When things go wrong, you now have to deal with the travel portal and the airline.

[jghn]

Many people will do things like use Google Travel to narrow down an initial set of potential flights based on times & cost, and then go to the individual airlines from there to book things. The GPs post is still a problem in this scenario.

[scarface_74]

That seems like a Google problem because of a poor interface. Unless you want each airline to standardize their offerings. Even then their would be differences based on loyalty programs, which airline you have a credit card for etc.

The legislation nor the regulations were geared toward third party aggregators.

[AdamN]

Kayak has a flag to limit tickets shown to only those sold by airlines. That's the way to go.

[trzy]

Google Flights isn’t a third party portal! It takes you directly to the airline web site to book. It attempts to estimate the fare price but that’s becoming increasingly difficult with variably priced seats and other “gotcha” expenses that get figured in deep into the booking flow.

[khuey]

For domestic flights, perhaps. It routinely refers me to third party OTAs for the cheapest prices on flights to less common international destinations.

[scarface_74]

And in that case, this was never regulated by the government. The airlines shouldn’t be responsible for how their products are presented on a random aggregator.

[lotsofpulp]

If each flight leg is a different price, how can the website show you the total until you select both (or all) legs?

[sjm-lbm]

FWIW, at least as of today, American Airlines' website attempts to show you round trip prices.

When choosing your outbound leg(s), they show a price inclusive of the cheapest return journey on the day you selected to return using the class of service on your outbound leg. So, there's all sorts of ways for it to be incorrect - maybe you want a different class of service, maybe the cheapest return has a stop but you'd like the direct, etc. - but it's still really useful for figuring out the best options for your flights.

[gertlex]

Kayak.com does it... it's very much a UX choice of whether to show combinations of flights at a given "level" (economy/main/1st class) or instead dedicate the space to showing the prices at all levels, and only show a flight at a time.

[nostrademons]

They usually show you a minimum, then have you select each leg, with the price for that leg fully displayed.

[nerdponx]

That doesn't mean it's not opaque and complicated.

[lotsofpulp]

The context is making pricing more opaque than it needs to be in order to earn more money.

I don’t understand how it could be made simpler, unless you want every flight to cost the same, which is stupid. Hence the complaint does not make sense.

[terminalshort]

"We can't tell you the exact price because you haven't told us what you want to buy yet" isn't opaque or complicated.

[nerdponx]

Kind of? The way flights are sold and priced is opaque and complicated IMO. That doesn't make it bad necessarily: maybe there's no good alternative, I don't know. But it really is opaque and it really is complicated. I think my opinion is at least somewhat educated, having done some crude flight price modeling for work in the past.

[BeetleB]

What airlines are you searching on?

Whenever I search (admittedly mostly on Southwest), I get everything up front.