[gizmo686]

Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.

[gruez]

Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!"

Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"

[gorgoiler]

A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility!

The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals on it. Airline alliances are surely the ultimate example of this.

[dghlsakjg]

Have you ever flown spirit or any of the other ultra low cost carriers?

It very much is a different experience than flying a legacy domestic mainline carrier. I’m not alone amongst people i know who will happily fly the cheap seats on United/Delta/AA but won’t even look at a ticket from Spirit or Frontier even at a significant discount.

Compare it to a flag carrier like Singapore air and it is a shockingly different product.

All that’s an aside: we know what regulated airlines look like since we already tried it, much more expensive, with airlines competing not on price but on amenities.

[tshaddox]

I’ve flown Spirit and Frontier several times, and Southwest many times (I know they’re not quite in the same category, especially after their recent changes). I genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to regarding the experience being wildly different. Other than a few quirks about what they do and don’t charge for and how they board and assign seats, I feel like there’s almost no meaningful difference between these and legacy carriers like United and American. I honestly don’t even feel like the prices are consistently that different.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

The two main differences are more armchair lawyering required to avoid fees (legacy carrier is often not going to put your bag in the dimension bin, but the Spirits and Frontiers of the world certainly will) and having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one on the legacy airlines. I think Delta is the only legacy carrier in the States that doesn't do obnoxious sales pitches - only the food cart upsell. Ryanair will come through with their hands out minimally three times since last time I rode them (though it's been several years, is it four now?)

One other difference I can think of is that carry-ons are more rarely included in the base fare in the budget airlines than the legacy airlines, though maybe that has also gone away since the changes where bags must be included in the listed price that Southwest pushed for.

[thrownthatway]

> having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one

I’m not from the US and have never flown any of the airlines being discussed here.

I’ve never heard of this, is there some YouTube videos you can point me to.

[tshaddox]

I haven’t actively surveyed all the airlines, but I happened to notice recently that United charges for carry-ons.

[dghlsakjg]

Besides the seats, seat pitch, entertainment, cabin classes, upcharges, boarding staff paid commission to reject carryons, advertising everywhere, the unpolished behavior of other clientele, customer service, and how they handle failure, sure it’s practically the same.

[alistairSH]

Failure is the one that always puts me off... At least with United, there's a good chance they can get a broken plane running again, or swap in a different airframe, within a reasonable number of hours. For example, my last flight to Puerto Rico was delayed by ~5 hours, due to a nose gear problem. They eventually swapped air frames around, giving us one that was scheduled for the late day flight, and got our air frame fixed in time for that later flight.

Spirit or another super-low-cost? They don't have the extra air frames and number of flights to do that. You get to wait even longer, losing valuable vacation days (or missing work meetings).

[hn_throwaway_99]

I feel like you're living in a different universe then. I will literally never fly Spirit (well, neither will anyone else) nor Frontier ever, I loath the experiences I've had on them so much.

First, as someone with relatively long thighs, I literally don't fit in their sardine can seats. But more relevant to most people, while things may be OK if everything goes perfectly and nothing is delayed or cancelled, you are completely SOL with Spirit/Frontier if something goes wrong (and "something" may just be they themselves decide to cancel an undersold flight at the last minute). It's nearly impossible to get someone to talk to, I feel like the employees know how shitty their companies are so they all have an attitude like they DGAF, and it's a mad (expensive) scramble to find alternative arrangements at the last minute.

I've never had as abysmal experiences as I've had on Frontier compared to any other airline.

[eru]

From a customers' immediate point of view, this sucks for you.

But it's great they are not regulated utilities. Because either everyone would have to pay for extra legroom, even if they don't need it, or some freakishly long people would not be able to pay for the extra legroom that they need.

[tshaddox]

I’m relatively tall and have a generally rough (but tolerable) time with all domestic bottom-tier seats.

I have no difficulty believing you when it comes to customer service. I’ve never had any issues requiring anything beyond the most basic customer service, so I just haven’t been exposed to differences between airlines in that regard. I also understand that a bad experience can leave an exceptionally bad impression. I suppose the only thing that might surprise me is if the higher-cost airlines don’t also have terrible service.

[SmellTheGlove]

Yup, came here to say this. Once you're on the plane and its in the air, Spirit and Frontier are like pretty much every other domestic airline. There's slight variation in terms of whether you get a whole can of coke for free or not. If you're taller than me, the 28" of seat pitch vs say 31" on delta may make a difference, but I'm only 5'9".

I still avoided them like the plague because the legacy carriers are selling you operational performance and the ability to usually get you where you're going within a reasonable timeframe if you're delayed or canceled. Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, whoever else, do not do nearly as good a job when something goes wrong. Although they should get a lot of credit - none of them have ever had a fatal crash.

[jmspring]

My parent "airports" are Bellingham and SeaTac. I hate SeaTac with all my soul. Next admission - primary carrier is Alaska. They are mediocre to ok. Cabin crew, always friendly. I've had random flight cancellations - some seatac/bellingham, others randomly before/after homeland security budget BS. In all cases, they rebooked on something ridiculous (a day or two later, hours that made no sense) and their call hold times (or call backs) are hours. Sadly, I'm in a captive market and am very proactive when day of travel is around.

[kakacik]

Sounds like you guys need some very basic regulations we have here in Europe - companies have to take care of folks, provide food, accommodation and replacement flights (and up to 600 euro in case of overbooking depending on distance). Not great, but worries like above are simply not on our calendar when traveling, low cost or not.

Also, here in Europe, traditional aircraft carriers have been migrating their quality towards bottom end (ie Swiss not giving any beers for free even on intercontinental flights, microscopic legroom also on intercontinental) while for example Easyjet is for me at this point a high quality reliable carrier with no bullshit. Ryanair is a dumpste3r but luckily they don't serve my nearest airport well.

[jmspring]

You state an opinion, but not why for that opinion. I’m mostly stuck with Alaska or a small handful being a couple hours north of Seattle and driving to/dealing with SeaTac is not fun. In the caliber you said you wouldn’t travel includes aliegent.

I’ve not flown them and stick to Alaska and the local puddle jumpers to get off the island.

[fcarraldo]

Singapore Air is majority government owned and is closer to having “utility” airlines than not.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

Conversely, Air India was majority government owned, did a pretty bad job of it, and is now privately owned.

[eru]

Yes, Singapore Airline is government owned, but I don't see how it's a utility?

[presentation]

If anything it’s a tool for making people outside of Singapore like/want to do business in Singapore, so if that makes it some twisted kind of utility then I guess anything can be a utility. Not like they have domestic flights.

[RajT88]

My company travel tool won't even let me book Spirit without it being flagged to HR.

[Krasnol]

Singapore Airlines is majority-owned by the Singapore government's investment and holding company Temasek Holdings, which holds 55% of voting stock as of 31 March 2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines

[boppo1]

>Compare it to a flag carrier like Singapore air and it is a shockingly different product

Never flown one of these, can you describe the difference? Hard agree about what you said about the others.

[dghlsakjg]

Staff that are unfailingly polite, comfortable seats in all classes, well maintained interiors, a culture of excellence. It is an airline that competes on being the best experience possible. My FIL used to do a lot of business in Singapore, and exclusively flew them on any route that was possible mostly economy and business class, but a spend that was high five figures per year, in the top tier of whatever their points program was. A staff member who knew what he looked like would meet him at the curb and walk him into a private check in cubicle. Even if you aren't one of their frequent fliers, they just treat you far better than you can expect from EU/NA airlines.

US mainline carriers try to get the high end travellers in first class, while also trying to run an ultra low cost carrier with the new "basic" class tickets. They end up doing a mediocre job at both by not hitting the level of service that Asian airlines provide, and not having the low prices that the Ryanair's of the world give you.

[boppo1]

Thank you for elucidating!

[dec0dedab0de]

I think Spirit has the most comfortable seats out of all the ones you listed. Especially if you're lucky enough to have a row to yourself and get to lie across all three of them.

[xmlblog]

This. Maybe there's a market opportunity for people who want to be treated like cattle, but even Spirit couldn't find it.

[sandworm101]

>> every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals

Worse yet, you buy a ticket for carrier A, then discover that due to xyz partnership agreement you are actually flying on carrier B.

[mr_toad]

Streets, tracks and maybe tarmacs are public utilities, not the vehicles themselves.

[xnx]

This is more accurate, but the case for tarmac is weaker than streets or tracks. The natural monopoly on tarmacs is weaker. It can be a very good think for a metro to have competing airports.

[cortesoft]

The question is whether we feel air travel is as essential to everyday life as busses and trains are.

In other words, do we need to make sure everyone can afford to take a flight somewhere?

Or is air travel a luxury that we can allow the market to set a price for?

Maybe flights are simply too cheap, and we should just allow airlines to fail, which will limit supply enough to bring ticket prices back up to a level that is sustainable for airlines as a business.

Of course, this means that a lot of people are going to be priced out of being able to fly places for non-essential reasons. Which, given the environmental impact, might not be a bad thing, although it will make life very different for most people.

[tracker1]

Personally, I'm inclined to drive over fly if I can get there in 8-12 hours or less. Even if it uses up close to a full day for a round trip. I absolutely abhor flying. I'm a bit tall and fat, and I've been stuck on the last row, inside seat with less room in both dimensions while the person in front of me tries to lean back literally dislocating my knee. All because they oversell flights, and your seat selection at purchase time apparently counts for jack squat when you show up at the airport to check in... you really needed to "check in" online the day before, even if you were in meetings until 9pm with no time to actually step aside to do the check-in on your phone that's just a miserable experience in itself, because nobody does accessibility testing with phones and larger text/display sizes.

[elektronika]

> The question is whether we feel air travel is as essential to everyday life as busses and trains are.

Anywhere I can get to by train in the USA I can go faster and cheaper by plane. By bus I can go "cheaper" if I ignore the value of my time and the people offering me meth at the bus-stop.

[bandrami]

I think the ultimate example is the fact that most routes are run by other companies than the branded carrier; capacity providers like Endeavour and SkyWest just borrow the name and livery of the major carrier they're operating for that day.

[ericmay]

Yea that's a good one. The problem is folks don't have patience. They see an airline fail and instead of waiting until a new competitor enters the market, as they inevitably will, they want to start regulating or look to other "solutions" but these things take time to work themselves out. It's a free market, not an instant free market.

[wat10000]

Or maybe a new competitor doesn't enter the market, and we're stuck with a mere four major, three mid-sized, and some smaller airlines in the US. It's still a highly competitive market even with Spirit gone.

[devilbunny]

Meanwhile, first class today is not very much more than coach cost in the regulated era.

Try flying Delta. It isn’t the cheapest option, but you really do get better service.

If you want to feel special, do Aeromexico first class. The checked bags are waiting for you before you can even walk there on a domestic flight.

Spirit was cheap. And if you’re poor, you need cheap. If you aren’t, buy better service and don’t complain that it’s just Greyhound on a plane.

[rogerrogerr]

Am I the only one who really doesn't care what kind of service I get on a plane? I don't drink alcohol, so I don't care about that. I bring my own water bottle, so I'm good on that. The little bags of pretzels are nice, but if they stood at the front and launched them out of a t-shirt cannon, I'd be good with that.

As long as the required crew of flight attendants doesn't assault me, I've never really got off a plane thinking anything at all about the service. Just "where do I need to go next" or "I'm glad to be home".

[jhgorrell]

When your flights are delayed/resechduled there is a world of difference. "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)

[alister]

> "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)

Which of the two was the Air Canada experience?

[jhgorrell]

"you are already rebooked" -- they were fab.

[rogerrogerr]

Fair enough, I've been in those situations where the service on the ground side of the gate matters.

[kelnos]

> I bring my own water bottle

Not arguing against your point, but it astounds me how many airports do not have water-bottle refill stations. My home airport (SFO) does, but many in the US still do not. I feel like that sort of thing should be legally mandated, given we're not permitted to bring water through security. The paltry amount of water they give you on the flight (and at times of their choosing, not yours) is not enough to rehydrate basically anyone.

[wat10000]

You can ask them for more, and at a time of your choosing.

[eru]

It's good that you don't care, and that you can self selected into getting the cheapest fare possible. The market works.

[moduspol]

Honestly I kind of liked Spirit because the snacks aren't free. When it's snack time, I don't have to wait 45 minutes for the cart to get to me because it's not stopping at every row. And it doesn't bother me to spend $4 on a snack because I already spent so much less on the ticket.

But I guess I also don't fly much, and I never had to deal with delays or rebooking with them.

[throwaway2037]

I like the EU model. The regulators set a "bare minimum" set of requirements. They have much better minimums that North America, and the fares are (still) cheaper per kilometer travelled. Also, I love the penalty system when flights are late.

[extraduder_ire]

Some of that lower cost in Europe is down to jet fuel being tax free, as well as the US having multiple mandatory taxes on plane tickets.

The cost of EU passenger rights payouts is vanishingly small on the average ticket if almost all of them arrive as advertised.

[wallst07]

"They have much better minimums that North America"

Can you enumerate these? As far as I'm aware Ryan Air is basically more "Spirit" than Spirit Airlines.

[throwaway2037]

For one, the penalty system for late arrivals. It is such a big business now, that there are whole businesses setup to advise you and do the work for the cut of the penalty paid. And that penalty system applies for trains too.

Also, look at Ryan Air (and Wizz Air) fares. They are consistently the lowest cost per kilometer travelled anywhere in Europe. Sure, it is like a flying bus, but it gets the job done, much cheaper than anything the US.

[lostlogin]

Company, always: "We need government subsidy". Then hell yes to regulating what they do.

[filoleg]

Spirit wasn't asking for a government subsidy to get saved from bakruptcy. They were asking to be allowed to get merged with JetBlue (which could've saved them from bankruptcy) and got denied by the government. Those two things aren't the same.

[rogerrogerr]

My understanding is that the Spirit/JetBlue merger was blocked by the Biden DOJ. Were they asking for that again, or was it a different thing that failed in negotiations with the feds recently?

[gizmo686]

The negotiations that were occuring directly prior to Spirit's shutdown were not merger related; but a direct government bailout.

[wallst07]

Biden/Warren backed/forced the DOJ to sue Jetblue/Spirit to block the merger for antitrust.

This doesn't seem to be a antitrust issue at all, it looks like it was one company bailing out another.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...

“Our win in court is a victory for U.S. travelers who deserve lower prices and better choices,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “We fought this case to protect consumers who, as the court recognized, ‘otherwise would have no voice.’ I am incredibly proud of the Antitrust Division’s team and our state law enforcement partners’ tireless advocacy.”

[eru]

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[lostlogin]

I know it’s frowned upon many circles, but regulation can work and do good.

There is plenty of crap legislation and regulation about, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

[eru]

Yes, but be careful not to commit the 'nirvana fallacy' of comparing real world circumstances against idealised optimal regulation.

[kelnos]

Sure, that's fair. But often enough I see people (not accusing you of this) doing the opposite: seeing bad regulation, and drawing the conclusion that the only solution is to remove all regulation and "let the market decide".

[mysecretaccount]

Even with your uncharitable framing I agree with both quotes.

[jmalicki]

Can you educate the rest of us by explaining your reasoning?

[roxolotl]

Not op but I also agree with the framing assuming you add “and they provide a vital service” to both. If a vital service is being used to extract profits it should be regulated so that equal access to the vital service can be provided. If a vital service is being provided but cannot make money it should be regulated so that it can be sustained since it is vital.

Now what is vital? Is Spirit vital? That’s the hard to define part.

[card_zero]

1. "We want to have this, but we don't want to pay for it!"

2. "We won't pay for this, but we still want to have it!"

These are of course both fair points. Why should we "pay for" things, what's that all about? We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want, supplied by pixies.

[sailfast]

I think they're both actually "We want to have this, but we don't want to pay too much for it just so a CEO can make 10,000x their workers and potentially ALSO still lose money."

[achierius]

> We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want, supplied by pixies.

Is this how you see roads? Are we entitled for wanting those to be paid for by the state? What about the police? Should we have to pay whenever a police officer stops a mugging -- or is the wage of that officer, too, supplied by pixies?

[throwawayqqq11]

Breaking down complex topics into binary black and white doesnt have to be wrong. The more important part is, how much wealth they extracted and how exactly. Was it market dominance with a superior product or amoral cost externalization.

The angle of treating transportation as regulated utility shifts the business focus away from profit onto providing services, which sometimes can cost more than your income. Similarly, would you close schools, because they didnt make enough money? Airlines are highly subsidized anyway, treating them as regulated utilities falls short of taking public ownership as public institutions, where services just cost money/subsidies.

[eru]

> Similarly, would you close schools, because they didnt make enough money?

Yes, of course. We should separate school and state.

> Airlines are highly subsidized anyway, treating them as regulated utilities falls short of taking public ownership as public institutions, where services just cost money/subsidies.

How are they highly subsidized? And where? Perhaps we should fix that, instead of adding to the problem? Two wrongs don't make a right.

[chadgpt1]

You'd force an entire generation of children to simply not be educated?

[kennywinker]

Utilities and transportation should be public services, and they are in many places. Sometimes it works well, other times it works less well… usually because the capitalists lobby it into neglect and then say “see it’s not working / losing money let the private sector take over”.

[bigyabai]

Companies like John-Deere should be able to survive without abusing their downstream customers. Many farmers are importing tractors from China because they're cheap and not hostile to repair like JD is. Some people might call it a "smart business model" to sell interdependent services, but in the long-term it's suicide.

Whether or not you solve this through regulation, that's up to you.

[card_zero]

It would be nice if companies could commit suicide faster, instead of dragging it out over several decades.

[kennywinker]

The extremes of capitalism have a negative impact on people’s lives.

The first scenario it harms us by under-serving and scammy practices, the second scenario it’s over-extractive and funneling money from the many to the few.

[Humorist2290]

Company offers a service that is considered essential to function in society, and the overwhelming majority of people _must_ pay for as if it were a tax: "this seems like something generally useful to the public! They need to be a regulated utility!"

[lyu07282]

If it's basic essential infrastructure and in the absence of high speed rail it is, it shouldn't be a regulated utility it should be nationalized holistically. You have to 1) make sure nobody is profiting of a basic necessity because that will always eventually be unsustainable (profits need to rise always and forever like cancer), 2) holistically because the parts of it that are profitable need to be used to cushion the unprofitable parts (in contrast to privatization where the profitable bits get privatized and the unprofitable bits are subsidized like USPS vs. UPS/FedEx/Amazon)

[xnx]

And similar illogical arguments on regulated transportation: "the trains are too crowded! We need more money."

"No one is riding the trains! We need more money."

[threethirtytwo]

Changing it to a utility? Like Bart in sf? We should have Bart authority run the airline!

[themafia]

Okay, but the process of underwriting an airline now somehow involves operating a successful credit card company. Which, you know, are not typically successful based upon operating excellence but upon rapaciousness of interest rates and merchant fees.

I'm not sure it's great to have important infrastructure operated this way. Other than regulation do you see a way out?

[sgerenser]

No airline operates a credit card company. They just put their name on a card and sell miles at a discount in bulk to credit card companies like Chase or Citi.

[themafia]

Of course they do. Why do you think they get money in return? You don't think that's linked to performance? They just put their name on a card, get a fixed amount of monthly money, and that's enough to let them lead at a loss on airline tickets?

Hacker News has become simple minded. It's embarassing.

[sgerenser]

Missed this so coming in very late, but wow this is unbelievably off the mark. The airlines do not operate a credit card company, full stop. They sell airline miles, at a fixed rate per mile, to the credit card companies. That’s it. Citi, Chase, CapitalOne, etc. are the ones that operate the credit cards.

[hilariously]

Company is valuable to us as a society in a fundamental way but is fucking us up in all sorts of unique ways: They might need to be a regulated utility.

[parineum]

Hopefully we can regulate them like California electricity and let one airline be active per airport and let them charge more than triple national rates.

[hilariously]

I am not trying to be flip - I am just saying the two sides are not bad regulation ripping us off and bad private companies ripping us off, we can instead do good things and attempt to do them well, we can hold people accountable and have integrity; these are choices we make every day.

[the_gipsy]

Bottom line: there never really is any free market. Because it doesn't work.

[rapatel0]

Power companies are the classic example. If power companies were forced to compete, their costs + competition tend to drive them out of business. As a result most power companies are forced to operate in really tight constraints with very limited but predictable margin.

I'm not saying that this a better outcome (power companies have their problems too). I was just commenting that this issue parallels the historical solution that was applied to utility companies.

[granzymes]

Power companies are a classic example of a natural monopoly because they require a ton of extremely expensive physical infrastructure to connect every house to the grid that would be wasteful to duplicate for every competitor.

The whole point of airplanes is that they require no physical infrastructure between point A and point B.

You can have competing power companies generating the power if the grid is owned by the state (or a regulated monopoly). Coincidentally, that is a good mental model for airlines because airports are often state-owned or if not are highly regulated.

[allanca]

I'm starting to come around to seeing airports the same way. Airplanes need "a ton of extremely expensive physical infrastructure to connect every" city to the grid.

That's why the creditors let Spirit die. Their airport slots and gates are more valuable than the rest of the company combined.

[rapatel0]

Fair point and I don't disagree. The more meta point I would make is that airlines are still fairly capex heavy (even if there is no point-to-point infrastructure). Each incremental new route operating during standard hours still requires 90m+ on a new airplane.

So if they tend to compete themselves into oblivion, or need to turn into banks to subsidize their product, then it might make sense that they should be regulated monopolies.

Still you're probably right, if they can turn into banks and stay profitable, then maybe that's a better market outcome overall.

[thrance]

If we let the free market do its work, there'd be no airlines. Jet fuel is heavily subsidized, the State injects massive amounts of money into airports and plane manufacturers, etc.

Honestly, with the looming climate crisis, we should probably just let them fail one by one and let alternatives (who can actually be profitable) take off.

[carlosjobim]

In a free market, every working citizen could easily afford more expensive airline tickets, since they could keep their entire income with no taxes deducted.

[komali2]

> every working citizen could easily afford more expensive airline tickets

You mean every laboring slave.

No free market means corporations are allowed to engage in slavery, chattel or otherwise. Let's be honest about what a free market actually is. Factory towns, lifetime debt bondage.

[carlosjobim]

Ah yes, thank you for correcting me. That is exactly what I meant.

[komali2]

I've yet to hear a successful true free market argument of why slavery won't happen, or monopoly.

[carlosjobim]

You're certainly right. I haven't thought about it that way before, there's no argument that holds up. Of course.

[abenga]

But the air travel system (airports/atc/etc) would not exist, because taxes were needed to bootstrap it.

[carlosjobim]

Modern governments have their fingers involved everywhere. That doesn't mean that nothing would exist and nobody would survive if things were different.

You could just as well say that if it weren't for private investors nothing and nobody would exist, because they also have their fingers involved everywhere.

But the post I'm replying to is a scenario of a different world. We're not discussing how things actually are and how things actually happened.

[thrance]

Sure they would. And some noble souls would pave the roads and build schools, act as firefighters... Like they did in Grafton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project#Free_Town_P...

[kelnos]

That's a really cute idealized world, but it wouldn't work in practice. The structure of free-market capitalism all but precludes it.

[carlosjobim]

The poster I replied to was already in the territory of idealized worlds. You can't just look at one side without looking at the other.

[SecretDreams]

When a necessary service is pushed towards being unprofitable / breakeven due to "free market pressures", it probably should have some kind of backstop to ensure the service doesn't completely fold - because it is necessary. I think the suggestion to treat it like a utility was trying to emphasize this.

I'd also feel similar I'd my primary water, electricity, or internet provider was on the brink of failing due to "free market pressures".

[nilamo]

Consumer air travel is not a necessary service, though.

[SecretDreams]

How do you feel about high speed internet vs dial up?

[forgotaccount3]

Not necessary.

But also, 'Not necessary' doesn't mean 'not worth subsidizing'.

If you think the government finds value in having a connected population with easy access to information then there's value in subsidizing that. Assume the government valued it at $10 a month per person due to increased economic activity made possible from the information flowing, if the market price for it was $60 a month then you have expanded access to anyone who valued it at at least $50 a month.

You can make the same argument for air travel by the way. Why does the government value consumers flying around the country? Why would the government want to encourage people to fly from Charlotte to Florida to go to disney instead of drive to Pidgeon Forge and go to Dollywood? Or fly to NY 3x a year to see grandma for a weekend instead of drive to NY and see grandma for a whole week 1x a year?

[gwerbin]

In this case prices are _below_ cost, no?

[willio58]

Airlines basically were a regulated utility until they were unregulated to the point where normal people can barely fit in a seat and there’s basically no amenities anymore. It used to be kind of nice to fly. That’s laughable now.

[eru]

Now you have to option to pay as much as you used to (inflation adjusted) for a ticket, and get first class service with all the leg room you want.

[kelnos]

On the other side of that coin, when airlines were heavily regulated, most people couldn't afford to fly at all.

The "regulation vs. no regulation" stance is the wrong way to look at it. Airlines are still regulated, of course. Maybe some of the regulations we do have are unnecessary, some of the regulations we got rid of we should really bring back, and perhaps there are others that we never had that we need.

[komali2]

We can't be sure whether cost came down because of removing regulation or improvements in technology. We can only guess.

[wallst07]

What other things changed besides regulation?

My guess is MANY more people fly and are able to afford to fly vs before. There are probably many others things that changed.

It's also very nice to fly.... in first class.

[pc86]

> Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility?

Because the majority of the HN crowd defaults to "a massive government bureaucracy would do this better" unless it's even tangentially related to their industry in which case it's "regulations bad" and "move fast break things."

[rapatel0]

I'm definitely not this type of person. see other comment

[striking]

Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes, but it's still a service that many people depend on (either directly or by the indirect economic impact of travel). It's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized; making it a utility would just shift the subsidy from credit card points programs to the government.

[crazygringo]

> Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes

This is absolutely not true. If all the airlines were prohibited from making money with anything else (miles, credit cards) then airfares would rise across the board and there would still be plenty of demand. Not as much, but still plenty.

[ajross]

> the amount anyone would actually pay is [...]

That's.... like a pretty shocking erasure of the idea of a demand curve given the forum here.

To be glib: no, that's not how it works. Increase the price and fewer people will fly, but the demand won't drop to zero. Decrease it and you make less money per ticket but the size of the market is bigger. At some point there is a local maximum, to which the market seeks.

But conditions change occasionally and the equivalent supply curve is moving rapidly because of the oil shock (i.e. it's more expensive to put planes in the air to service tickets you already sold). And things like the mess with Spirit are what happens when the market readjusts: the rest of the industry will (probably) backfill some of the lost capacity, but not all of it, and prices will (probably) rise a bit to a new equilibrium.

[appreciatorBus]

If airlines didn’t exist, people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years. There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode) that makes it worthy of subsidy .

[striking]

Listen, I'm the type of fella who'd gladly take the Amtrak from the East Bay to Portland, 18 hours each way, and I'm telling you even I'd do so only as a novelty. If I actually had somewhere to be, spending basically an entire day on a train would be a non-starter. And that's just on the same coast! If I had to take the Amtrak back east to see my family for the holidays I would probably just not go. My travel to the other coast (not to mention back to the country where I was born, an additional ocean's worth of distance) would only be worth the trip for like a life change or a death in the family.

I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so, judging by both Amtrak ridership statistics and the cost ineffective nature of my attempts to travel on it.

[appreciatorBus]

I didn’t say anything about trains or Amtrak?

People and goods have travelled around the world long for thousands of years before air air travel and train travel. And people have made decisions above the trade-offs of travel to see family for thousands of years before air travel and train travel.

If air travel was unavailable or unsubsidized, people would continue to make those decisions and life would go on.

[kelnos]

> People and goods have travelled around the world long for thousands of years before air air travel and train travel.

Yes, and it really, really sucked back then. And the number of people who could actually do that travel was much, much smaller than today. Air travel (and train travel, to some extent, though it mostly sucks in the US) has enabled people to travel around the globe who never would have been able to in the past.

What a bizarre argument.

[vel0city]

I'd like to see a revival of trains in the US, but I agree their impacts will be limited. I think they make sense for regional travel (Texas triangle, New England area, West coast, Midwest, maybe NM/Colorado/South Wyoming, etc.) Hopping between these regions seem like planes are the obvious choice. The distances are just so high, with often very limited regional centers connecting them in between.

I'd love to take some HSR to Austin or Houston or San Antonio from DFW, but I just can't imagine the network to make a train work competitively to get from DFW to NYC or LAX.

[hakunin]

When something is that drastically different, it becomes different in kind. For example, if you have high network latency, you cannot jam (play live music) with friends remotely. If you have low latency, you can. Just because the difference is in a single value (I.e. net speed) doesn’t mean it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s possible. Air travel makes the kind of business, shipping, and attendance possible that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, because our collective lifetimes and risk tolerances are limited.

[rendaw]

I think you're saying that there are businesses that rely on cheap air transportation that are very valuable, but at the same time couldn't afford higher air fees.

But that's a contradiction. If they are valuable, their customers would pay more for their services - that's the definition of valuable. And if their customers would pay more, they could afford higher air fees.

[hakunin]

No, all I’m saying is that air travel is so different than any other kind of travel, that it is very special, and borderline magical. Saying something like “nothing magical about air travel, things and people would still travel around the globe” is very reductive. I’m not giving my opinion on subsidies.

[jodrellblank]

How are you not giving an opinion on subsidies?

Person 1. "Airline service is more valuable than people will pay for, it's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized"

Person 2. "Airlines are not magical, people and goods will move another way, so it doesn't need subsidy".

You: "Airlines are magical. Those things cannot happen another way."

There's three conclusions for what you think: 1) that airlines are special and magical and doing something which cannot be done another way, but that has no value and airlines can go away. That's incoherent. 2) Airlines are both affordable and profitable. That doesn't seem to be true and needs some supporting. 3) Airlines are doing something uniquely 'magically' valuable, they are not profitable, then they need subsidising.

[eru]

That doesn't mean we should subsidise it.

[hakunin]

I’m responding to a claim that there’s nothing “magical” about air travel. It literally enables things otherwise impossible.

[kelnos]

There absolutely is something magical about air travel! We can get places much faster and much safer than we could before. I live in California, and another part of my family lives in Maryland. Are you saying that when I want to visit my family, instead of spending 5-6 hours in a metal tube in the air, I should spend a week (or more) either driving or taking various trains and buses?

If air travel didn't exist, I likely wouldn't move around the globe at all. Hell, I wouldn't move around the country even.

In the US, roads are mostly publicly-owned (the ultimate subsidy). Local bus and rail transit is usually also publicly-owned, though when it isn't, it's done through public-private partnership and/or subsidy. Regional and long-distance rail is subsidized. Why shouldn't air travel follow the pattern?

[paganel]

> There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode)

There kind of is. I can make it from here in Bucharest to Paris in about 3 hours by plane, while by car I'll need about 3 days (i.e. two sleepovers till I get there). This is magical to me. To say nothing of places like the Arabian peninsula or, I don't know, the Indian subcontinent, I wouldn't even think of getting there by car as it is close to impossible (at least when it comes to a land-route to India), but taking a plane is a 6-hour flight from nearby Istanbul to Delhi.

[devsda]

You can't think of a single situation where an airline route is infinitely better and probably the only viable option ?

Btw you don't need to completely disregard other modes of transport to appreciate bus :)

[appreciatorBus]

Buses and planes are both great! Both have advantages and disadvantages, and different cost structures. I trust people to make their own decisions about trade-offs for travel that work for them and their situation. When we arbitrarily pick one and shovel free money, land or infrastructure toward it, we are putting a thumb on the scale and depriving people of the power to make their own decisions.

Of course, we can argue that there are network effects or natural monopoly effects for fixed infrastructure like roads and rails, and thus there must be a public role. However policy rarely seems to remain at this reasonable position and instead quickly expands into something altogether different.

[kelnos]

> When we arbitrarily pick one

Aren't all modes of transportation in the US either subsidized or public-owned to some degree? We haven't arbitrarily picked one; we picked them all.

Air travel is maybe the least subsidized, though? Essential Air Service is probably the main thing? Long-distance bus like Greyhound is only minimally subsidized too.

But local transit (bus & rail), and regional and long-distance rail are all subsidized or publicly owned in the US. Most roads are publicly-owned, either locally or by the federal government. Long-distance bus and rail are actually unusual in how little they're subsidized.

[appreciatorBus]

You forgot that private cars are also creatures of subsidy. We like to think that the main input to go vroom vroom in cars is cheap gasoline, but IMO it’s realy cheap land. (aka subsidized public land)

A car with no gas could still be used to store stuff, or even roll downhill. A car with no land can’t be used at all for anything. And the amount of land required increases with the square of the velocity you want to travel out. But we never add that in.

As far as air travel, I haven’t done the math, but I suspect if you were to add up just the foregone property tax revenue associated with the land underneath the airports you’d end up with some pretty serious numbers.

Anyways, my basic point all of this is the same – we should be careful about subsidies because they tend to distort incentives and decision-making, whether we apply them to airplanes or horse buggies. It doesn’t mean that there’s no place for government involvement in transport, simply that we ought to be wise to the side effects and externalities. I could buy that the government should be involved in air travel, but I part ways with the idea that this should be extended such that if people get used cheap fares on Spirit then the government should guarantee Spirit operation forever. Maybe Spirit was just an anomaly, and we’ll be fine when it’s gone? Some people might fly a little less, some people will just eat the difference and not care, some people will take the bus, some people will buy a car. It’s all just normal people making normal trade-offs about decisions in their life.

[eru]

If they are so much better, why do they need subsidies?

[victorbjorklund]

Which transportation mode gets no direct or indirect subsides?

[eru]

Net or gross?

[folkrav]

This line of thinking assumes being profitable is the only thing that makes something desirable or not.

[eru]

If you desire something, you should be willing to put your money where your mouth is.

[1shooner]

Do you oppose the federal highway system (or rail systems) as well?

[appreciatorBus]

Basically yes.

[eru]

I guess at least when they are given away for free or severely underpriced to the user.

[kelnos]

Right, the externalities of those road systems aren't really paid for properly, by anyone.

But that's hard to do, because for many people/uses, they have to use those roads to get done what they need to do. The alternatives (like high speed rail) just largely don't exist in the US, or are painfully sub-par.

[kelnos]

Ah, you're one of those people who think we shouldn't have nice things. Got it.

(And no, the market often does not provide.)

[freedomben]

> people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years.

Indeed! We don't need air travel when we have perfectly good teams of oxen and covered wagons. We could even hunt and forage for our food along the way to save some money!

[carlosjobim]

Not advocating for subsidies, but there are things like patient transports to hospitals, where speed is a factor.

[thrance]

Just build hospitals closer to people. Or make people move closer to them. If it wasn't possible to fly to the hospital, people would just not live so far from them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

[komali2]

> people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years.

Would love to compare the economic throughput in raw dollars of the Oregon trail vs a single flight route.

Don't forget that the whole point of transportation under capitalism is enabling and stimulating economic activity. So sure, get rid of the airlines if you want to collapse a bunch of economic activity. Personally I'd hope for it to get replaced by high speed rail, but kinda hard to do that when economic activity is highly depressed.

[forgotaccount3]

> indirect economic impact of travel

Like what?

Nearly all 'goods' are going to travel more efficiently by rail and truck. And I say nearly all to cover the outliers like maybe an organ flying across country for transplant.

So if it's not the distribution method of choice for goods, then leisure? It's probably a global positive if people fly less. People will end up going to more local vacation destinations instead of aggregating all of those resources into a few popular locations that end up being massively overcrowded. This in turn reduces carbon impact because driving 3 hours is significantly less impactful than flying for 3 hours.

If you are just talking about all of the labor that has built up to support this inefficient and wasteful enterprise, that's probably for the best to reallocate that labor elsewhere. It will happen eventually, unless you think cheap oil is a permamenent feature, so why not happen sooner than later?