Making flying even crappier doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Regulations that put a floor on how crappy airlines can be should be pretty neutral on competition since all the airlines would have the same rules.

That's not to say all rules are a good idea, even rules that raise quality -- raising the floor raises prices, and if the floor is raised higher than necessary, prices are higher than necessary too, making flying less affordable. Set the floor too low and people fly less because it's too crappy. Set the floor too high and people fly less because it's too expensive. You're looking for the balance point.

IMO, the floor is too low right now. I think it's a mistake to try to lower it.

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Ajedi32 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> Set the floor too low and people fly less because it's too crappy.

Seems like a great opportunity for an airline to be less crappy and make a lot of money selling tickets to all those people who are "flying less" on other airlines, no?

So the question then becomes why hasn't someone done that already, if the floor really is "too low"?

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michaelt 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Many airlines offer different fare classes. For a return ticket half way around the world, I can pay $1100 for Economy, $2800 for Premium Economy, $3900 for Business Class and $6900 for First Class.

It seems you have to charge a big, big premium to deliver a less crappy experience.

And even then, the experience is only better in some dimensions - your checked luggage receives the same handling no matter what ticket you buy.

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missinglugnut 10 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The last flight I was on was American Airlines. We waited in the plane while they tried to figure out to start it because the auxiliary power unit was out, and the generator American uses to start planes with no APU was also broken, so they had to borrow one from another airline. And no APU also meant no air conditioning until the plane is started.

It was only a 30 minute delay but the heat made it miserable.

I paid for a name brand airline, paid to choose a decent seat, could have paid for more upgrades, but no amount of money short could prevent me from waiting out a delay in a hot cabin because the airline failed to maintain their equipment. The folks in first class faced the same miserable heat.

It's a market for lemons. Paying more doesn't assure quality, it just means you spent more money to get screwed. So people aren't willing to pay.

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smcg an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

High barrier to entry, consolidation, and collusion. Look at how many airline mergers have happened over the past decades.

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sershe an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That wouldn't explain why the reverse happened. Everyone introduced the crappier economy tier; even the airlines initially saying they wouldn't eventually caved and now there's a crappy economy tier default. Moreover, gradually these crappy tiers converged, including some (united iirc) getting slightly less crappy following user demand.

Most people want cheaper tickets and don't shop on quality. In the rare cases that they do airlines readily adjust. But the airlines trying to offer quality as the default would go out of business

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matthewdgreen 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

Price aggregators like Google Flights continue to show the crappy tier by default, which means that airlines have to offer that tier to appear competitive. No idea why Google wants to build its product this way, but there are only a few companies in this business.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		One of the fundamental truths of American aviation is a significant fraction of fliers will buy the cheapest ticket every time. They’ll bitch about it. But if you cut some leg room and a few dollars off your tag, you’ll swing them from another. Basic economy doesn’t exist because of Google Flights. It exists because it sells. Well enough that it sustained entire discount airline fleets until the majors copied their model.

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Ajedi32 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Wouldn't it make sense for regulators to focus on those problems then, rather than on setting arbitrary industry-wide limits on what level of service consumers are allowed to buy?

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cosmicgadget 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That is the beauty of the floor, everyone stands on it so it becomes acceptable even if it shouldn't be.

Deregulation and disassembly of consumer protections is what Americans voted for.

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karmelapple an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Funny enough, different airlines play by different rules [1]

1. https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/airline-cancellat...

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type0 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

good summary on where air travel is headed: The Horrifying Evolution of Air Travel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnGgAyQhP7Q

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pavel_lishin an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> Making flying even crappier doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Ah, but do you own an airline?