I don’t think the “take first class” people are offering an actual solution to your problem. They are pointing out that extra luxury costs extra money.
My brother on a long family car trip (1976ish) “If only we could watch TV or a movie or something.”
Once you move beyond the budget airlines like Southwest, you usually do, in fact, have an option of choosing more room for a reasonable cost. It’s called Economy Plus on United, and other airlines have similar arrangements. It’s certainly not 7 times the cost of a regular economy seat. I’ve been offered Economy Plus at check-in a bunch of times, often for as low as $50 for a three- or four-hour trip (say, San Diego to Chicago).
You say that you fly out of Denver. Denver is a United hub city, and i’m willing to bet that the vast majority of United flights out of there do, in fact, have Economy Plus seating. Every United plane i’ve flown on in the last decade, with the exception of the smaller regional jets (usually United Express flights) had Economy Plus.
Bingo.
My Wife and I did score some Business class on our flight to Germany 2 years ago. It was wonderful. A domestic flight in the US? On the routes we fly, Good luck.
The way to get rid of classism is to have the entire airplane be just one type of seating, and to stop rewarding rich people with more room / better snacks / priority boarding / extra carry-ons / servile attitudes.
People seem to love, love, love their class systems.
As far as the extra 8% charge, no way: it’s a race to the bottom, and we’re almost there.
Umm… Yeah I would agree. But they keep throwing it out there don’t they.
Luxury? Seriously? This is what you think this is about? This is where we have a total disconnect. I’m not talking about luxury. Not at all.
Being able to be reasonably comfortable for a reasonable price is not a luxury to me and any one over the 50th percentile. I’ll gladly pay for it. But I think the prices are ridiculous. If it’s even available.
Strap 'em to the wings. 
No way.
I want those rich people up there, paying five or ten times what i’m paying for their flight. Those people subsidize us folks who have to fly in cattle class. Without business and first class tickets, on many flights the economy class ticket would be even more expensive.
I always feel a bit dirty defending the airlines, because they nearly all suck, and flying is at best a chore, and at worst a nightmare ordeal for the majority of the population. But the fact is that, in many ways, we’ve got the airline system that we, as customers, have made clear we want.
Apart from the wealthy, almost everyone shops for airfares primarily on price. Airlines recognize this, and they’ve adjusted to give us the cheapest fares. Of course, in order to do that, they now charge extra for a lot of things that used to be included in the price of the ticket, from drinks and meals through to checked bags and, in some cases, even carry-on bags. They’re also trying to maximize revenue by cramming more seats onto the planes.
And of course, now that they’ve done this, the same people who shop primarily based on ticket price also bitch and complain that they have to pay for drinks and food and checked bags. And they also bitch and complain about seat pitch and seat width.
I understand why people complain. Flying can often be miserable, and the airlines themselves often treat their economy-class customers like crap. But if we keep pushing the airlines to act like budget businesses, we shouldn’t be surprised when that is, in fact, how they act.
To be honest, in my experience flying is often made more miserable by my fellow passengers than it is by the airlines. If people would wait their turn when boarding, learn how to stow their bags and get into their seats quickly, not drag massive suitcases onto the plane (yes, carriers should be better at enforcing size limits), and generally not act like clueless morons, everything would go much more smoothly.
Doesn’t every airline out of Milwaukee have a non stop? I mean the first stop has to be somewhere, correct?