Simple. With websites like kayak optimizing pricing, you buy the cheapest flight. When you buy the cheapest flight, your buying from the airline that has the least profits. So that means they need to save money in other places in order to make up for it.
They can fit more seats in their plane. Small seats suck. And I am always stuck in the middle seat.
In February you would like to go to New York City.
Flight A from LA to NYC costs $400 on orbitz and kayak. Flight B on the other hand is $425. Flight C... what a joke... costs $450. Which one are you going to buy?
Of course save the money! If you are the average customer you would most likely get the $400 ticket.
Now you get to the airport and you realize you have to pay 25 bucks for your checked bag. Reminder you are going to NY and needed a bunch of jackets and stuff. So you pay the 25 dollars. You are now pretty pissed off, and tell yourself that air flight isn't what it used to be.
If you would have taken Airline B though, you would have had a free checked bag. So your price would have been the same $425 total. But with airline B you wouldn't have had that nasty surprise of having to take out your wallet and pay those $25. So your flight doesn't start too well.
Next up you get on your flight.
Of course every overhead compartment is pretty much filled. Not that it matters too much, because you only brought a small carry on backpack. You find a small spot next to someone else's small bag. People start packing in and a woman decides to squeeze her massive samsonite carry on next to your bag. Of course crushing all your stuff. There is no other solution, so you decide to take your backpack and put it at your feet. Great...
Now the flight takes off. It's a modern plane with TV's. Yes!! you start watching some TV. Never mind... After 10 min you need to pay $7.99.
Now the drink cart is coming down the aisle. Cool you'll ask for a coke and get some peanuts too. Oh no, those all cost extra. So you end up not buying anything because you hadn't fit that in your budget. Now your hungry, thirsty, and angry.
The Airlines:
- Flight A was completely filled up. They even had to bribe 2 passengers to take the next flight because it was overbooked. Flight was delayed 20 min. All customers were pissed off. Airline made .5 % profits
- Flight B was 90% filled. Airline barely broke even.
- Flight C was 67% filled. Most middle seats were empty, everyone was happy. People were not stressed out. Airline lost a bunch of money.
So bottom line it's the customers fault that airline travel is so bad. We treat it like a commodity when we buy the ticket, but we expect high quality VIP service when we get to travel. If we would have just payed $450 straight up for the plane ticket , the airline would have had the cash to add in extra perks. But with people just going for the cheapest cost, it forces every airline to be cheap.
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