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

Re:Basic Economy Fares Don't Lower Ticket Prices, They Incre... by mcphage on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @08:46AM (#13309061)

The thing is, it doesn't matter if people will spend more or not. Say you regularly purchase something, and pay $10/lb for it. And you usually buy a 6 pound package. So you spend $60.

And the one day you go into the store, and they tell you "We just introduced a new Basic Economy package!". It's still only $60, but now it's 5 pounds instead of 6. Or, for $12 more, you can upgrade to your previous 6 pound package.

May you pay more to upgrade, maybe you pay the same—but either way, what used to be $10/lb is now $12/lb. The price went up.

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Re:Basic Economy Fares Don't Lower Ticket Prices, They Incre... by nemo44x on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @12:31PM (#13310912)

I think you're missing the fact that they were offering better service than the discount airlines but at the same price. It was the only way to compete when most people who travel infrequently purchase strictly on cheapest price. In effect they were offering a better service than people were paying for because they had to.

Now they are finally updating their seating and policy to be in-line with what the discount airlines offer. So they aren't charging more for economy. They're pricing it inline with the level of service you get, something they weren't able to do before.

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Re:Basic Economy Fares Don't Lower Ticket Prices, They Incre... by ubernostrum on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @09:17AM (#13309245)

You're still trying to generalize from a single anecdote provided in the article. That doesn't work out.

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