I think the concept of letting people with enough money get to do whatever they want is a bit unsettling.

> "Do whatever they want"

People with enough money can already just buy a second seat or pay for business/first class.

This actually opens up increased comfort options for those with less money.

The problem historically is that these increased options tend to go hand in hand with efforts to crappify the experience for those not paying extra in an attempt to "encourage" them to pay more. See "economy plus" ie. "Cram in more seats to shrink seat space except for a few that will stay the same that we can charge more for".

This is also a part of the game to avoid listing high fares on affiliate travel sites but then charging more through upcharges like this in an attempt to mask overall increases to average fare prices.

So basically you find market economics is unsettling?

If it makes you feel any better there's not a single flourishing command economy anywhere in the world right now. China, Cuba, etc. are all moving towards market systems for a reason.

If history has taught us anything, it's that humans will create power gamification in all situations. The market system is the only way to harness those instincts to a somewhat greater good.

Yes. Markets are a means, not an ends. When markets undermine basic fairness, they are gross.

So are you against business and first class? Without those customers paying 10x the economy fare, average folk like you and me would never be able to afford to fly around the world. You should be very careful when deciding what kind of markets are good and which are "bad".

That's how the financial arrangements work out, but those are quite malleable.

Planes are perfectly capable of flying without first class sections.

Each section of most planes bring in the same amount of money. So say you have 100sqft for seats the price is basically determined by 100sqft/seats. So while first class costs 10x much the 15 people in first bring in the second revenue as the 150 in economy.

The other consideration is that you'll likely not fill an entire plane if totally filled with economy seats so the price for everyone on an all economy flight would have to pay significantly more per seat to make up for the 60-80% capacity on basically 80% of routes.

I think you give markets way less credit than they deserve. Check out http://wonderfulloaf.org and see if you are persuaded.

Don't think there's anything wrong with markets per se, but implementation details are important.

Markets where some players have considerably more coercive power than others don't tend to produce good outcomes.

I’m struggling to see your point of view here. My neighbor has a much nicer car than me. Is it unfair that she used more money to purchase a better car? What distinguishes my example from the ability for passengers to pay for more space on a plane?

I agree with you mostly, but I would like to bring up the ecological concern of flying with empty seats. It increases the avg carbon footprint per passenger.

I assume this is only in the case of a non fully booked flight. But I didn't read the article.