That’s one of the small ones, unfortunately.
But the flip side is that the proliferation of regional jets opened up some routes that didn’t exist before. In 1983, you would have been spending some time in Atlanta or Memphis on the way.
Right. But as I said consumer behavior is consistently to make this complaint; but when actually presented with the choice, to prefer the unbundled no-frills ticket that’s $25 cheaper. The airlines are giving people what they actually want, not what they say they want.
This much is certainly true. I can’t find the stat right now, but as I recall something like 20% of the population flew in 1980 - and they were mostly white.
For the record, I’ve worked in market research and consumer behavior for 30 years. 
I absolutely understand this; people shop on what they are able to see as the lowest price. The fact that many people are using the comparison travel sites (Travelocity, Orbitz, etc.) just emphasizes this, as the other fees that they’ll have to pay typically aren’t shown on those comparisons.
And, what’s also happened is, over the course of the past 15 years, the airlines have continued to add places where they can get another few dollars out of you, without raising the base ticket price, by adding new fees and payments for optional services (many of which were, once upon a time, provided without an additional charge).
Indeed. As I said a couple of years ago, on this board:
Note that I was not picking on Expedia; I was just using them as an example of a comparison travel site.
I still say that it pays to pick up the phone and speak with a live booking agent (there should not be a fee for this; they want your business, after all); or if you must book online, to read the fine print that is usually linked to the fare. If I check flights from, say, Calgary to Toronto on Air Canada online, I get five or six fares, all linked to what they provide (for example, free checked baggage, first checked bag at $25, food and beverage included, food and beverage paid for onboard, wider seat, more legroom, etc.). As a result, I am never surprised at what I get.
[to kenobi]
But you’re still implying that this is just some kind of ruse on the part of the airlines to increase overall prices through hidden add-ons, when in fact the evidence shows that base ticket prices have dropped far more than the cost of the new extras. In other words, true unbundling has taken place.
You claim that the market was more transparent (and therefore market forces operated more effectively) when ticket pricing included bundled extras. That’s far from obvious. Is it easy for a consumer know whether the “free” things that are bundled with one ticket are the same as what’s bundled with another? Comparing like with like can be difficult under either scheme, and there’s no evidence that market forces are not operating well under the unbundled scheme. I think virtually all consumers understand that there may be extras, and (for example) people who know they will have a lot of luggage check what it will cost. At least with an unbundled pricing system customers can choose to pay for only the extras that they need.
The only thing I think some airlines messed up in the unbundling process is charging for checked baggage, while being laissez-faire about carry-on. It would make the whole boarding process quicker and easier if there were a financial incentive not to bring large carry-on items into the passenger cabin. I think that is recognized now, and things are changing.
Not exactly what I was meaning to imply.
The airlines are, from what I’ve read, kind of screwed on profitability right now. 30 years ago, when business travel (which was, at that time, not tremendously price-sensitive) was the core for much of the airline industry, and it was an era when there were semi-arcane tricks to finding low fares (as mentioned earlier in this thread, like flying standby, and staying over on Saturday).
We’re now in a situation in which most air travelers have been trained (by the airlines, by the fare aggregators, by services like Priceline, and just by the ease of getting at information online) to be highly price-sensitive. It’s so easy to compare and shop ticket prices, that airlines pretty much have to match each others’ ticket prices on competitive routes; an airline which tried to raise ticket prices by even a modest amount would likely see sales drop precipitously, which is part of why ticket prices have stayed low.
And, that’s why the fees have come in; the airlines, desperate to add to their thin profit margins, have continued to find ways to generate profits that don’t get reflected in the ticket price on a web site. And, it sometimes has unforeseen consequences (such as you note, with carry-on luggage becoming ridiculous, as travelers try to avoid paying to check bags).
When I look at it in that way, yes, it all makes logical sense as to why it’s happened. And, as you have kept trying to point out, relative to 30 or 40 years ago, the relative cost of air travel has gone down (and I do get that, really and truly ). All I’ve been trying to say is that it’s not the cost that’s discouraged me from wanting to fly any more; it’s the fact that the quality of the air travel experience has gotten degraded in the process.
One thing that isn’t reflected in the statistics is the fact that there are a lot more people in the world, and a lot more disposable income to go around, so a vastly greater number of people travel. Airports have obviously increased in capacity, and they do get you there more efficiently, but the on-time stats don’t reflect how crowded airports feel.
But this isn’t just air travel, of course. Pretty much everywhere in the globe that’s an attractive destination for any reason is so much more crowded than it was in 1980. I was kind of hoping bird flu would really take hold a few years back when everyone was worried about it, but it fizzled.
Flying across N. America looks to me to be much more expensive than flying across Europe. I can fly in April from an airport a few miles from London to one a few miles from Berlin, stay two days and return, all for <£20. Okay, the timing is not great (19:00 departure) and I won’t be able to take more than a small bag and a laptop, but it will get me there and back. For around £60 I can fly to Cyprus and back five nights later in February. These prices are not exceptional and the cut-price airlines often offer flights for £10 or even for £1. https://www.gotogate.co.uk/choose-your-flight Cheap Flights: Compare Flights & Flight Tickets | KAYAK
I was watching some old film of people flying across the Channel from London to Paris. They had to be weighed along with their luggage as the captain needed to balance the plane. Yes they sat in comfy seats, ate a meal served on fine china and drank tea in porcelain cups, but they paid more, adjusted for inflation, than a regular passenger would pay today to fly to New York.
United and Delta have introduced Basic Economy in the last couple years as well, but the restrictions vary from airline to airline. I think Delta still allows a carry-on in the overhead but AA and United do not. The prices for these fares are all over the place from what I’ve seen. Sometimes only a little cheaper, but sometimes a lot. I’ve even seen them priced higher than a normal Economy seat. Not a big deal if you’re travelling alone, but the no seat selection restriction is a non-starter if you’re trying to travel as a family.
The Basic Economy fares also restrict the other type of standby that hasn’t been mentioned yet, where you have a flight booked at a later time but try and get a spot on the same flight departing earlier.
Spoons, i simply don’t believe this part of your quoted text, i’m afraid:
If i understand this correctly, you are saying that your sister, who books bargain economy seats and then pays for things like baggage on top, ends up paying more for her travel that you do when you buy a Business or First Class seat. Is that correct?
Quite frankly, that seems incredibly unlikely, given the massive difference on most flights between the bargain Economy seats and the Business or First Class seats. I understand that the unbundling of airline services often makes Economy-class seats more expensive than they first appear, and that most of the stuff that you pay extra for in Economy is included in Business and First Class tickets, but that does not make an Economy ticket (plus extras) the same price as a Business class ticket.
I flew United Airlines from San Diego to New York and back just over a year ago, for $400 round trip. Checking my bag cost me an extra $25 each way. I can’t remember what i did for food, but i most likely had something to eat at the airport. Even at the ridiculous prices that airports charge for food, that wouldn’t have been more than $25 for each day of travel. And i’m being generous; i probably bought a $10 sandwich or something.
But even at the top end, this means that i paid a total of about $500, including food, to get to New York and back from San Diego. Are you trying to tell me i could get a cross-country return Business or First Class flight for 500 bucks?
Standby still exists as a thing, but not quite like the OP is describing.
Suppose there are ten flights a day from Seattle to LA. The flight you want is the 10:33 am flight, but that one is almost sold out and the tickets are going for $309. The same goes for the 11:49 am flight and the 1:14 pm flight. But the 2:55 pm flight has seats available for $172. You can buy a seat on the 2:55 pm flight and then show up at the gate at 9 am and ask them to put you on the standby list for the 10:33 am flight. This probably won’t do you any good because the flight will be completely full (or even overbooked). So you get on the standby list for the 11:49 am flight. If you’re lucky, maybe they have one or two empty seats, at which point they’ll pick people from the standby list. But you probably still won’t get on because they prioritize the list. Here’s what United Airlines has to say about it:
*Customers standing by are prioritized by the Premier® status of the traveler. Specifically, the published Premier status that has the highest priority is Premier 1K®, followed by Premier Platinum, Premier Gold, Premier Silver members, other MileagePlus program members, and then all remaining customers. If there are multiple members with the same Premier status, the fare class originally purchased is used to determine priority. In the event there are multiple members with the same Premier status and fare class, the time that the member was added to the standby list is the determining factor.
*
and from the same page…
Some of the most common types of standby customers are:
Involuntary standby customers – Customers who did not travel on their original flight because a flight is canceled or an itinerary is changed by United.
Voluntary standby customers – Customers on eligible fares who are voluntarily standing by for a different flight from their original flight.
Pass riders – United employees or their eligible dependents standing by on a space-available basis. Pass riders are prioritized last, and are only assigned seats after all other standby customers are accommodated.
The last time I flew standby was about four years ago. I was booked on a flight into Seattle arriving at 5pm and a connecting flight to Eugene leaving at 10pm but they had an earlier flight leaving at 6pm. I asked if they had room, the agent said yes, they let me on board, so I got home four hours early. They did not charge me any extra for it. I was lucky that the flight was not full.
And there’s the rub. Flights today are full more often than they were in the past, thanks to computer software that adjusts prices up or down as needed to fill all the seats on as many flights as possible.
I doubt it’s common, but we actually had it work for us once this way. We were flying to the Dominican Republic with bicycles and the cost for carrying the bikes was quite expensive. If we flew first class the bikes were essentially free (a small fee) and it made up for the extra cost of the tickets. But first class on these flights were essentially more legroom and better food, nothing like true international first class.
Without the bikes it would not have made any sense.
When I was a youth back in the early 70s some airlines had a “youth standby” system for the vast hordes of us baby boomers. In return for your willingness to miss the flight if it was full, you got to fly for half price. It was a great deal because flights were rarely full and the savings eventually added up to real money. This is among the many things that no longer exist today.
As for fares, sure, there are a vast multitude of different fares now and some of them are pretty low, but I think that to claim that fares have greatly dropped since the “old days” really requires that you pick your definition of “old days” carefully. I distinctly remember the standard economy airfare for a route that I flew often back then: $35. On youth standby that would be $17.50!
Of course one has to factor in inflation. In today’s dollars, $35 would be just a touch over $200, and the standby fare would be about $100. But the actual “premium economy” fare today that gives you all the benefits of standard economy back then varies between $412 and $1605. And the cheap fares with a multitude of restrictions including extra baggage costs, no meals, cancellation and change fees, etc. range from a rock bottom $214 up to $1082, with a median fare of $397.
So I don’t see how costs have fallen in that comparison; looking at the median cheap fare today vs. inflation-adjusted 1972, it looks like the cost has doubled while services have dropped and extra costs have been tacked on.
And I totally agree with post #14 about lack of space, nickel-and-diming and post #17 about security hassles. You can flaunt all the statistics you want, flying is just no fun any more. I don’t buy the on-time stuff, either. Some flights have a standing record of being routinely 40 minutes to an hour or more late on average, or worse. The best that can be said is that flying is probably safer today than ever.
Added to all that, airline points are becoming more restrictive and difficult to use and have significant add-on out-of-pocket costs that you have to pay.
One of the nicest flights I ever had was my son’s first flight when he was about 10 years old, when I took him to New York City on one of the new Airbuses that the airline was then still acquiring. I had a lot of points saved up so I redeemed some for business class tickets that didn’t cost me a cent. I don’t know how full the economy section was, but the business class cabin was almost empty. The flight attendant took my son up to the cockpit (yes, this was pre-9/11) and later came back and suggested I go up and have a look because it was so cute. He had made himself comfortable by sitting on the floor behind the center console between the two pilots, and was chatting away at them.
Now tell me how much of this could happen today in the paranoid, overcrowded, cost-conscious penny-pinching cattle-class fiasco that passenger aviation has become.
No, but on second look, I can see where it might come across like that. Let’s see if I can clarify.
Sis will look online for the cheapest possible economy fare, at various third-party websites. She will not phone the airline, neither will she look at the airline’s website, claiming “The airline won’t advertise discounts.” She finds what she likes (say, Website X offers City A to City B, for $300), books it, then finds to her surprise that the airline nickels-and-dimes her for about $200 in extras when she travels. If there is fine print on these third-party websites, she doesn’t read it.
Me, I look at the airline’s website. I can see Website X’s $300 super-cheap economy fare, but I can also see the $500 economy-plus fare, the $800 preferred economy fare, the $1200 no-changes business fare, and the $1600 changes/cancellations allowed business fare. Each price is linked to what it does, and does not, include (baggage, meals, etc.). I follow the links, read the fine print, and if I have questions, I pick up the phone, call the airline, and ask. More often than not, I end up booking business class. I know exactly what I’m getting; to me, there are no surprises.
In the end, she gets nasty surprises; I’m never surprised. She wastes hours looking at all kinds of third-party websites, price-shopping for the absolute rock-bottom price; I spend 15 minutes finding the same price on the airline’s website. It is true that she pays a total of $500 to go from A to B, while I pay $1200 for the same trip, but I think my method results in less stress and worry, and to me, that is worth the extra cost.
Hope this clarifies things, and sorry for any confusion.
Back in the late 90’s I used to get emails from American Airlines for last minute deals on flights. They were for flights less than 48 hours out and there was no fiddling with the offer (dates, seats, return time, destination). They were deep bargains though for those.
But just to clarify, those were offers for confirmed seats on the flight, not standby.