An analogy would be purchasing a PC; savvy folks can save hundreds while unsavvy people trying to do the same are very likely to accidentally compromise on things that are important to them.
I don't think the solution is regulation; I think it's to teach common sense.
That is both inaccurate (with regards to airlines--you can't tell how much of a flat-fee ticket with baggage included is devoted to that baggage, because ticket prices are widely variable by airline and time, so straight-across comparison is not reliable) and . . . well, just awful; "do your research so you don't miss out on cheaper alternatives" is a reality sometimes, but saying that this is a desirable property of an economic system seems like an inhumane and, if taken to extremes, systemically dysfunctional position to take. It seems like it incentivizes deliberate complexity in pricing structures--and the theoretical backpressure against those trends (competition by organizations with simpler structures) seems to only very rarely be the equal of its opponent.
The alternative isn't "hold everyone's hand through all cost decisions"; the alternative is don't make things worse/more confusing unless you absolutely must.
Edit: typo.
You have it backwards. The problem with simplicity is that your options for a PC become Performance, Mainstream and Economy. If Economy would have been sufficient except for the storage, sorry, you'll have to pay +$300 for Mainstream (which also has a faster processor and more memory) even though faster storage by itself would only have been +$100.
There is efficiency in not paying for what you don't need, but it has intrinsic complexity. Or you can just buy Performance, not have to worry about anything, but pay +$800.
Having the simple options available is good because some people value time more than money. Having the complex options available is good because some people value money more than time (or can make a complex decision in a small amount of time).
Having said that, the charges for checked bags are still ridiculous, but only because the fees exceed the airlines' cost for carrying the bags by such a large amount. Fortunately they're likely to be destroyed by the price comparison sites now listing the fees next to the ticket price, which should reintroduce price competition for the checked bag fee and either get the fee reduced/eliminated or benefit the customer by giving those who don't need to check a bag a disproportionate discount.
Or some enterprising airline will realize they can profit from selling the empty space in their planes not being used for checked bags to someone like FedEx to carry packages. Then FedEx will realize they can open a storefront in the airport and charge less than the airlines to ship your luggage and you'll be able to pay FedEx $15 to pay the airline $10 to check your bag, instead of paying the airline $30. Then the airlines will just charge $14.
If you're confident and in fact the entire industry is moving in the wrong direction, then you should probably invest as much as you can afford in an airline that is offering simpler plans. For me, I'll trust that the airlines' leaders are the experts in their own market.
> saying that this is a desirable property of an economic system seems like an inhumane and, if taken to extremes, systemically dysfunctional position to take.
"Choice" (i.e., "freedom") _is_ a desirable property. Sometimes it means people make inefficient choices (per their values); in general, the proper response to this observation is to teach people how to choose efficiently.
I think people should be heavily criticized for making arguments like this -- it's entirely done in bad faith. You're presenting a fairy tale, a piece of advice that is completely un-actionable for a huge majority of people. What is this person supposed to do, when
(a) No such airline exists
(b) What sort of marginal impact can <$1000 (presumably the most that can be afforded for this by the majority of people) even have in achieving actual change?
If anything, complaining about it to others (online or elsewhere) probably has more efficacy than doing the above.
(a.1) Of course there are differences in the complexity of airlines' pricing structures. To claim that all airlines' menus are equally complex is an extraordinary claim.
(a.2) The extent to which it is hard to find an airline with a very simple pricing structure testifies to the economic infeasibility of these structures unless the OP found a market inefficiency (which was overlooked by the entire industry), in which case he should exploit it to the tune of millions of dollars.
(b) Assuming the OP is in fact an airline industry visionary, when other airlines see him making money hand over fist, they'll change their ways.
Perhaps. As I've said elsewhere, another explanation is that it's easier to collude than compete, especially in markets with entry-barrier-induced low participant counts.
The "it came to be this way therefore the market has revealed the optimum" claim misses frequent realities of limited market control/visibility, greed/laziness (i.e. collusion), and intermediate or catch-up evolutionary behavior (i.e. it's quite hard, absent lots of historical evidence often lacking in recent markets, to tell whether something represents a stabilizing optimum or a state of flux as emergent behaviors pursue changing realities, and there are many reasons to presume the latter).
No, they shouldn't.
It has a feature like that for checked bags too, but it says "coming soon".
Having to pay bag fees sucks but then again, before separate bag fees we were still paying them, we just didn’t know how much of the ticket price they really were.
> we just didn’t know how much of the ticket price they really were.
We did realize how much they were apart of the ticket. The definition of what people brought on the plane was figured into by planning at the airline. You can't just pay for more carry-ons and bags than the airline allows. Right now what we have is an artificial price drop and it's being supplemented by fees. (Airlines are pissed that they can't hide the YQ from the price anymore)
This basically forces me (who never checks anything) to subsidize your (I assume) traveling habits.
There are numerous entirely private systems that require such subsidy; are you claiming that any amount of subsidy for others' habits is objectionable (i.e. the libertarian hardline)? Or are you making some other point?
Poorer people can opt out of checking luggage in order to make that visit to a dying relative possible.
Everyone here forgets what it was like when a domestic flight cost the equivalent of $600 - which is out of reach for a lot of people.
Charging for luggage and dining separate from the ticket makes that possible, in part.
Either way, it's still possible to check smaller pieces of luggage, and if most passengers could do that economically then loading and unloading the plane would be a lot quicker, saving the airlines non-trivial costs.
From what you said it's abit like saying that you don't want to subsidize the police via your taxes because you never use them.
As to subsidies: you usually can't control whether you need the police or not. You generally can control how much you pack. My wife and I didn't even pack a check-in on when we took the kid to Disney World recently. Why should I pay more for people who have to have … whatever the hell it is that people pack in a checked bag for a domestic flight.