Ask people what makes them choose an airline and they'll probably tell you a tale about reputation, service, legroom, amenities, what have you.

Now stick them in front of a computer and tell them to buy a ticket with their own money and watch them pick the cheapest option regardless of the rest.

It's a race to the bottom because that's what people really want. When the rubber meets the road, most people want a horrible, cheap experience.

Why do airlines overbook flights? Because people would rather save $5 with a chance of being bumped than pay a little extra.

Obviously, we'd all love direct flights with sixteen feet of legroom, a hundred free checked bags, gourmet meals, free access to a library of every movie and TV show ever made, and for a price of $3.50. But that's not going to happen, because amenities cost money. When we're faced with the tradeoff, we favor low prices.

Once I truly realized this, I became a lot less annoyed with many airline shenanigans. Yeah, it's pretty annoying that as a tall guy I barely fit into the seat. But it's what I paid for. If it was that important to me, I could pay extra for more space. I don't, because, like most people, I prefer cheapness above all else.

You can get a much nicer experience if you pay for it. If you don't feel like paying for it, then what are you complaining about?

Not particularly related, but this line from the article caught my eye:

"It makes no sense to allow airlines to charge an astronomical fare just because a flight is nearly full, and a dirt-cheap fare for an advance booking."

What planet is this guy from? Of course it makes sense to charge high fares for a scarce product in high demand, and low fares for an abundant product in low demand.

There are "I only shop on price" seats and "money is no object" seats. I wish we had more of a middle, beyond the usual +$150 for an exit row or +$100 for a regular economy seat, but in the forward half of the plane.

True Premium Economy (such as what exists on Lufthansa, Air NZ, and now Delta international routes) does not exist for US domestic travel.

  Boston (BOS) – San Francisco (SFO)
  JetBlue 833 · Airbus A320
  Above average legroom (33")

https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/products/travelproducts/Pag...

Exit row seats are also often first available to members of various frequent flyer programs and usually have a modest amount of extra legroom.

From the FAQ on the linked page:

> Who can purchase Economy Plus seating? All customers who are not traveling on a Basic Economy ticket may purchase Economy Plus seating subject to availability. Advance complimentary access to Economy Plus is available to Premier® Platinum members and higher (for themselves and up to eight companions), and Premier Gold members (for themselves and one companion). Premier Silver members and one companion enjoy complimentary access to Economy Plus seating, when available, upon check-in.

I just... what is this even? How about just putting the legroom on ticket sale data—including for sales on 3rd party sites—and selling different ones at different prices? I don't want to become an expert on all this weird tricking-you-into-spending-more-money-with-us-than-you-should-if-you're-not-super-careful crap for every airline I might fly with, I just want to buy a ticket and fly every now and then, and I'm willing to pay for more legroom. How would I even begin to comparison shop for this upgrade vs. other airlines? I know the answer is "you're not supposed to because they're trying to screw you" but that's an awful answer.

This is precisely where regulation is useful: transparency in WTF you're buying and standards in how it's presented so competition can work its magic without consumers having to learn a bunch of otherwise-useless junk (the worst of which is "how to navigate systems and jargon that are specific to one vendor") in order to confidently make a simple transaction.

Anyway, basically all the major airlines except Southwest offer this. It's Economy+ on United, Delta Comfort on Delta, Premium Economy on American, Main Cabin Select on Virgin America, Even More on JetBlue, etc. I found this out through looking at the front page of each of their websites. Prices range from $40-50 (additional) per seat per leg. You can select it upon seat selection at the airline's website (which is where an aggregator will take you, anyway): the extra economy+ seats that are available are shown together with the price for the update, and you just have to click on them and it will adjust your fare accordingly.

So now you know. Incidentally, this is pretty good evidence of this subthread's point: you expected to be told all of this by going through a 3rd-party aggregator where you can search by cost. If you are representative of the average American consumer (which is probably pretty likely), it's no wonder the airlines compete on cost.

They should probably work to ensure it's possible to accurately filter by other criteria on aggregators then, if they actually care about getting people to shop based on other features. They choose not to make any effort there, because even small levels of obfuscation enable extraction of rents. It weakens the ability of the market to improve quality and reduce cost, the more difficult it is to gauge quality.

If they cared the tickets would be per-seat and tell you the properties of that seat in some machine-parseable manner, not be upgrades (that change the seat you're in) that may or may not be available at all depending on how you bought your ticket, whether you're part of some special program, and so on. Ah, travel—the one context in which not-at-all-rich people are encouraged to temporarily act like petty nobility. Almost certainly another trick to extract more money from people. No accident it's also an industry that's managed to make something inherently amazing and awe-inspiring resemble one of the only-moderately-unbearable parts of hell.

At least with your Amex Platinum card and all those points you've racked up you can be baron in the Fourth Circle for a day.

You can buy economy plus unless you got a super discounted flight. Frequent fliers get first access depending on their level.

Just use google.com/flights (lists leg room data), or just hit the "i" mark on each fare and you can usually see the actual leg room on the ticket.

Don't bother using aggregators to buy the ticket. They're useful at finding fares, but the same rates are usually available through the airline's site as well.

Rather, frequent fliers out of necessity soon learn these things, and start to speak the language(s) that the airlines use instead of language that muggles understand. Even frequent flyers don't always instantly know why I don't fly in row 1, though I do fly first class.

It's easier to know what you're getting when you buy a TV than it is to do so when buying an airline ticket, even if you buy the TV on impulse, and even though TV vendors are looking to extract as much as they can from TV buyers.

You want to control every detail of the result while also spending as little money as possible? That takes some effort, with both flights and apples.

Actually, getting the best price for a flight is easier than with apples. I'd have to spend all day calling (or visiting!) stores in my area to see who has the best price for apples, since most stores don't make that information available online in any form. Accomplishing the same for a flight takes literally thirty seconds.

I can't fit in there - I'm 6' tall (183cm), so I fly Delta and buy their Comfort+ seat upgrade. But I'll also look at their 1st class fare, because after checking a bag and getting the upgrade, sometimes going all the way to First is only like $100 more (and the bag check is free, and you're first off the plane, and first to get your bag at the carousel).

I otherwise agree with the sentiment that the data should be more available (I spend way too much time on SeatGuru trying to find plane/seat info before booking), and I desperately wish we had an option to pay for a few more inches of leg and elbow room (NOT just legroom), but Economy Plus is about as straightforward a program as it gets in the airline industry.

Basic status on AA will give you economy plus seating for free. HUGE for anyone over 6'

JetBlue and Delta both offer this.

JetBlue has plenty of leg room anyway, I'm 6' FWIW and I find paying for the upgrade to be needless. Delta it can be worth it for longer flights.

Where can I filter flights from multiple carriers to not show tickets providing under some level of legroom?

I haven't tried these myself, but it seems like one of those things you can pay some money to get someone else to worry about it for you.

I'll forward the suggestion of having this information (seat dimensions, extra legroom) more readily available to agents when booking (I work for the largest "traditional" travel agents group remaining).

I haven't used a travel agent in ages. What's the experience like these days? Are they something that would be good for the average Joe like myself to use, or is it more of a specialized niche now? I understand you may be biased, but I'd still be interested in the inside perspective.

What I do think is that you're not getting much of a discount going online (and agencies get their own exclusive deals too) - what you do get buying with an online travel agency (OTA) (and I personally like) is more control, but at the expense of advice and experience. If you're comfortable taking the risk of taking wrong choices and like setting your own itinerary, online offers more "freedom". However, it seems that customers 50 and over value the agents' experience a lot. Personally, there are several things I would have missed if I booked flights myself: legroom, connection times, the fact that you need to have a ticket be the same "segment" to get protected if things go wrong - although separate "segments" can be cheaper, etc., and, most importantly, someone to call if things go wrong (as they unfortunately often do in travel), who will have more leverage with the supplier than a mere customer. Of course, there must be good and bad agents, as with all services. Also, agents don't make much money (if any) on air tickets anymore, they rely on hotel and cruise and other ancillary services to make their money (or a service fee).

I've been told that top travel agents are worth their weight in gold (and are paid as such!), the guys working for the Elite travel division make the lives of business and luxury travel a lot better, they know the arcane commands in the mainframe-terminal GDSs by heart and can do permutations that are simply not allowed in most web interfaces.

Of course, this is only a good thing if the airlines are transparent about it, and offer enough compensation to bumped passengers for them to take it voluntarily.

Agree. Not to mention spoken by a person who almost certainly has never run a business. And make no mistake 'charging high fares' when you can allows you to lower the price of other seats and fees. Eliminate that excess profit and it will be made up somewhere else in the pricing scheme. No different than concerts or alcohol or premium water in restaurants.

On each of the ~20 jetblue flights I've been on in the last few years. They ask for volunteers to gate check carry on bags to the final destination for free because there isn't enough overhead space. But they're the ones that force us to try to get into a carry on by charging for normally checked bags. I've tried asking outside security if I can check my carry on since I'll eventually be asked to voluntarily gate check it, and they don't let me. Instead we make boarding this competitive experience that takes longer than it needs to as passengers fight for overhead bin space.

I am puzzled by the various choices that airlines make that seem to dramatically increase their aircraft's turnaround time at the gate. I can only assume that either it doesn't do as much harm as it seems to, or short turnaround isn't as valuable as I think it is.

Relevant to what seems to be your local optimization, if you are trying to get your bag checked for free, you are combining all the possible inconveniences: carry the bag to the gate, have its contents qualify as carry-on contents, and wait for it at the carousel when you land.

It does seem like a better idea to waive the fee at times, in order to streamline operations. But I pay the fee 24 hours in advance (when online checkin opens). How would they implement a waiver fairly?

These are all very easily quantifiable variables. Maybe you can find out how on-time that flight normally is. You have to do a lot of research to figure out how much legroom you'll have on a specific flight. And knowing what your risk of getting denied boarding is almost impossible, so I'd argue that is in fact not priced into the current model.

Right now it's also not possible to choose based on these variables since the choice of airline is so strongly correlated with travel time, unless you are travelling between one airline's hub and another's.

Southwest is a great example that the current model is working. Don't want to pay baggage fees, and get nickeled and dimed for everything? Fly Southwest.

I frequently recommend them as the best domestic airline for people who don't fly enough to get airline status, and aren't willing to pay for first/business class travel. They've got a pretty good route network, and the difference between the highest tier passenger on a Southwest flight and the lowest tier passenger on a Southwest flight is far less than traditional carriers.

I hope the free market punishes the ultra-economy fares that traditional carriers are offering. Flying a traditional carrier on an economy ticket without status is already such a degrading experience. Hopefully passengers won't be willing to suffer further degradation, and will just switch their business to Southwest, Alaska or another carrier that doesn't offer ultra-economy fares.

There is also real competition occurring at many airports throughout the country. For example, Delta and Alaska Air are waging an all-out war in Seattle right now, with both airlines aggressively pursuing flyers in that market.

Now, I do think some additional regulation is necessary. The fact that airlines aren't responsible to take care of stranded passengers during weather delays is inexcusable, and increased fare transparency would help the competitive side of the marketplace. And I agree with the article that regulators should also be much more skeptical of mergers that decrease competition and establish de facto monopolies.

Southwest is called out in the article as an example of an airline doing things right.

I fly Southwest and prefer it to other domestic airlines, but are they actually beating the other airlines? I just looked up their Q4 earnings out of curiosity, and they seem to be doing well compared to their competitors:

Southwest Q4 2016: $522M net profit on $5.1B revenue United Q4 2016: $397M net profit on $9.1B revenue American Q4 2016: $289M net profit on $9.7B revenue

This piece fits much better as a NYT article. Maybe one day soon I'll learn to read properly.

I had read elsewhere this is specifically to avoid an incentive that would otherwise exist for airlines to fly in potentially unsafe conditions.

And as a backstop, still give the airline the power to decide on a no-go... even if the "weather service" says it's ok to fly, if the captain doesn't feel comfortable, they can make that call.

Probably. Even then, though, what's the significance of the airline paying? On a practical level, this means they raise prices to account for that risk (and likely a higher estimate to be on the safe side) and consumers are paying anyway.

So the real choice is whether you want to charge the consumers that booked the flight that got cancelled for the cost of the hotel rooms when this happens or all consumers a smaller amount to account for it. Like an insurance policy, basically.

I guess at the end of the day, I understand not wanting people to be stuck in an airport for a while because they have no money in an unfamiliar place, but I also feel like occasional bad weather is a fact of life and legislating more complexity onto the airlines is moving the wrong direction.

> And as a backstop, still give the airline the power to decide on a no-go... even if the "weather service" says it's ok to fly, if the captain doesn't feel comfortable, they can make that call.

This has always existed, as far as I'm aware. You just don't want to put airlines in that position, and it's pushing it to expect captains to overrule that decision when the airline is paying their salary.

As someone who actually flies, the existing system works amazingly well, and delivers a service at a surprisingly low cost. Undersold aircraft and regulated fares are great for business travelers who are price-insensitive, but virtually every "fix" he cites will cost people money.

Personally, I just wish some airline would test "the market" for a premium level of services (few more inches of elbow room is "premium", apparently) that doesn't cost 5x the money for 10% more space.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-11-08/travel/9811080...

Sadly, they were merged into Frontier in 2011.

When I had to fly cross-country due to a parent's sudden serious hospitalization, I paid an arm and a leg to book a fare for a same day departure, but I sure am glad I had that option, I'd rather pay $1300 when I really need to be somewhere than having no options at all because all of the seats sold out at $400.

People won't book a flight -- especially on short notice -- just because it's cheap. They book because they actually want to go somewhere. Sure, there are people who occasionally want to make a trip on a whim, and a higher price is a disincentive and deterrent to making that decision last-minute... but it doesn't automatically follow that low prices mean that they'll always be snatched up and there won't be available tickets for people who "need" one more.

Demand pricing (plus full fare flexible tickets and first/business class) is what helps less affluent people being able to afford a ticket at all. So instead of everyone having to pay a flat $600 for a seat, people with flexible travel dates can buy early and pay $300. They'll lose some amenities (like legroom, food, "free" baggage, etc), but for some people, that can make the difference between being able to afford a ticket at all or not.

If the plane is so full that the airline can triple the price over what they cost 2 weeks ago, it's likely that there would have been no seats at any price when I wanted one if they kept prices steady at $400.

I'm by no means wealthy and $1300 was painful, yet still I was thankful that I could get a seat at all for a very time sensitive trip.

Are they really low cost? And having worked abroad recently, it's shocking how much cheaper European flights can be compared to U.S. flights. And maybe my memory's off, but it seems like domestic flight costs were much lower just 5-10 years ago. In college, I could get a round trip ticket to Las Vegas for under $100, and checking right now, the lowest price is $296.

Budget European carriers that fly to airports you've never heard of are another story entirely.

puts tin foil hat on. I wonder if the fear is that if they improve economy with more leg and arm room and charge a little more, they will lose first class customers to the better accommodations. Essentially the intentionally make economy a bad experience so that people upgrade to first class which is multiple times more expensive.

If it was just about the extra space over a normal coach seat, the premium would only be 10-20% for a much larger seat.

"If [Spirit] asked people what they wanted they would have said 'more legroom'." --apologies to Henry Ford