Basic Economy Fares Don't Lower Ticket Prices, They Increase Ticket Prices

Re:Basic Economy Fares Don't Lower Ticket Prices, They Incre... by wpietri on Monday January 02, 2017 @11:09PM (#13306636)

Yup. A few years back some friends and I went from SF to LA for a conference. We all left home at the same time. The people who drove and the people who flew arrived at the hotel within 15 minutes of one another.

It was a real eye-opener for me.

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Re:Basic Economy Fares Don't Lower Ticket Prices, They Incre... by oh_sigh on Monday January 02, 2017 @11:47PM (#13306804)

Part of the problem is non-linearity of delays. If you are delayed 45 minutes in traffic towards the airport, you may miss your flight and have to wait 6+ hours for another. With driving, if you are delayed 45 minutes, then you are just delayed 45 minutes at your final destination.

Because of this, people frequently spend a lot of non-productive time at the airport, because they are afraid of the (small) chance that they can miss their flight entirely.

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Re:Basic Economy Fares Don't Lower Ticket Prices, They Incre... by Cd00d on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @10:02PM (#13315329)

When you're trying to be price sensitive for your reimbursement (say, keeping startup runway in mind), the 55.5 cents per mile reimbursement very quickly overtakes the cost of other forms of transit.

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