> 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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jmull an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> no?

No. Because people don't know how crappy it will be when they book.

They're just juggling prices and scheduled times.

People who aren't flying very frequently and don't have a trustworthy source of knowledgeable recommendations -- that is, a substantial majority of people -- will never take enough flights to know which airlines are worth $X more. If they even have many options for their route and time.

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smcg 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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sershe 2 hours 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 2 hours 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 2 hours 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 2 hours 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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missinglugnut 2 hours 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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michaelt 2 hours ago | parent | prev | 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.

	▲	cogman10 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Don't forget private charted jets. Those fill the >$7k hole for anyone willing to spend through the nose and they give the best experience of any flight. The cost is around $1k/10k per flight hour.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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