good airline food but at a higher ticket price is not what consumers actually choose to buy. They'd rather suffer and get a discount on the ticket. They merely complain about that suffering.
Didn't agree so much. I generally avoid air travel, when I have to, sometimes I'll bite the bullet for first class. I'll fly Delta over the cut rate carriers.
I'm not a luxury car guy... But have bought a few Buick cars along the way.
So I'll pay a premium for comfort and quality in general to a point. Not everyone does every time, but there should definitely be the option.
I think you're both right. Obviously, given the success of no frills airlines, the vast majority of consumers are absolutely price focused. The shorter the route, the more evident this is.
Equally some small minority (assumed from the relative tinyness of business/first class) are prepared to pay for more.
Both can be true at the same time, and are.
For longer flights, the desire for at least some amenities goes up. I don't expect in-flight entertainment from London to Schipol, but London to Sydney without a screen would be brutal.
Personally I'm in the camp where the worst food in the terminal is still 10 times better than the food on the plane, so I eat before and after, not during. But everyone else seems to love the hour killed discovering what they're being fed. So again, room for different opinions.
Our options are not determined by what we want, but by what the ticket-buying population as a whole has demonstrated is its actual (as opposed to merely stated) preferences. The marketplace for travel is not perfect, but it has never been more efficient.
It's all bundled though. It's pretty complex to get a dirt cheap ticket, with no checked luggage, but extra leg room, no extra entertainment or extra perk but just a better meal.
I see it as the same situation as cable TV, you'll never have the perfect bundle tailored to your tastes at the right price, and that's partly by design, as the company can charge more to have you pay for useless options.
Your answer is the only correct answer. The original article might have been correct for half a century ago but has nothing to do with today where food is universally bad on airplanes across the world with the only possible exception being airlines like Emirates whose business model is not to run an airline but to get people to fly to their host country.
The fact that airlines chose this to compete on suggests they in fact believed that this was something that consumers at least value to a higher degree than some other amenities. Which suggests they would probably have price sensitivity to it at some level.
Isn't the point that food in economy class is often worse than it needs to be for the cost, and food in first class is not good enough to justify the massively increased ticket price?
Yes, but many don’t buy first class for the food. On a red eye (often don’t serve much food at all and if they do it’s very rushed) it might be you need to sleep for a meeting tomorrow. Or if you’re tall, leg room + basic comfort.
The parent comment claimed that people "choose" the worse option, ignoring that the "better" option is marginally better food for usually 2x or 3x the price.
I haven't flown domestically (in any country) in about 10 years. The shortest leg of recent trips will be ~2 hours, either followed or preceded by a ~7-9 hour flight.
Parent's comment suggests I'm "choosing" worse food options (thankfully they are still an option, you can just choose not to eat on the plane) as if that's the only factor.
It couldn't possibly be that business class on the same route is more than 4x the cost, and for a family of 3 will cost the same as a brand new small car... just to get a slightly better reheated meal. Yes the meal is in a "nicer" seat, but that isn't the argument being made in the parent comment, is it?
As a fat and tall guy, it's all about the extra free inches of space. Worst seat is the back isle. Person in front of my pushed seat back and dislocated my knee. Short notice flying for work can really suck.
I'm 180cm and definitely could stand to lose some weight so I've experienced some uncomfortable flights - generally on Qantas. Surprisingly (given average national height/weight) the best legroom I've had was on Thai, followed by Singapore airlines.
But then I can't compare to US airlines, which if stories are true, sound just horrific by comparison for any number of reasons before legroom is even a factor.
Airline upgrades is a market for lemons. Even if you, say, buy an upgraded seat you may get sat next to a big guy or a rowdy child and then your seat sucks. Instead you have to pay much more (sometimes multiple times a main-cabin ticket) for the cabins up front and even then you might have to set next to a drunk businessman.
If you complain you will get told there's nothing that can be done. Even if you get sat in a seat soiled with vomit or poop[1][2]. And of course you may get bumped from your flight, potentially violently[3] or have it delayed, rerouted or cancelled.
So it's a market for lemons, you buy the cheapest ticket you can since the experience is likely to suck no matter what you do, and you try to endure it.
I've traveled for business a few times and a few times I got the company to pay for a first class seat up front. One time the first class cabin had a crying baby in it. Another time it was full of rowdy children. It turns out that rich people have children too. Paying for first class simply decreases your chances of dealing with such things, just like any other seat upgrade.
I suspect that airlines could offer seats which guarantee that you won't be subjected to various nuisances, but choose not to.
From what I've noticed, first class in the US is usually around 3x the price. As a big guy I'll usually swallow the bullet on cost. I really don't mind kids too much and like chatty people.
Otherwise, I have noise cancelling headphones
That said. I do think I can handle a whole can of soda. On the food front, I can pretty much take it out leave it.
I agree, and besides: We were all that kid at some point or another in our lives, probably many times too. The adults then were patient with us, so I think it's our turn to pay that hospitality forward.
I presume you don’t recall directly. I wouldn’t suppose your mother would tell you that “yeah, I let you run amok on flights”. Notwithstanding that the general point was a tad broader.
I fly first class a fair bit (10-12 flights per year), and children in first class is pretty rare. When I've seen it, they've never been rowdy. In fact, my experience is that its usually really quiet, which is one of the things I really value.
Maybe i'm just the luckiest person in the world. But its never happened to me and I fly a moderate amount to have some sample data.
I will concede, that flight rowdiness in general is very different based on time of day. The afternoon is the worst. Fridays and Mondays are the worst. I love night flights, to the point where I prefer them. Everyone is so much calmer on red-eyes.
In my experience, the cultural differences due to socioeconomics explains a reduced chance of having to tolerate rowdy children. Those children in first class will be better behaved on average, or the parents will be more likely to heed complaints.
First class is always full. If you have status with the airlines you can get free upgrades to first class now. So they start releasing upgrades like 3 days ahead of time for the best statusholders. Then 2 days before they release upgrades for the middle tiers, and same-day or day before is the lower tiers. They basically try to shift everyone up a tier in the flight and the extra coach seats that those people left behind will get filled with the basic-economy fliers, which is why they don't let them reserve seats: they just use them to fill in the gaps on the flight.
You are more likely to have an empty seat next to you in the back of the plane than in the first class.
Yes, its always full bit it's not always sold. An upgrade is the airline turning an unsold seat into a potential future sold seat or customer good will.
But they don't get full price for it in any way. They'll take money to seat kids there if you wanna pay.
In the later 90s, I used to try to upgraded at check in. It was usually a 2x cost of the was a seat or less vs 3x of you got first class ahead of time. Since the 00s is pretty much never an option. Most flights are over sold and getting a decent seat (prefer front row) is really hard.
And the past couple years, even then they're often sold out when buying tickets less than months ahead of time. Mostly have traveled in occasion for work and mostly shorter notice.
