With regards to quality, do airlines in other places generally provide more bang for the buck or are they just generally more expensive than US flights to provide for the higher quality?
That said, flights throughout Asia at distances similar to US domestic flights tend to be reasonably cheap.
I decided to make a comparison:
Fly Singapore Airlines from Singapore to Hong Kong. This will cost you 225 USD in economy.
A domestic US flight of the same distance would be San Francisco to Albuquerque on United Airlines. This flight will cost you 468 USD.
So it seems to me that Singapore Airlines is able to provide better quality at much lower cost. Perhaps the US airlines simply don't have to be better because there is no one that shows it can be done?
A better comparison with about the same distance in the US is New York to Miami, which can be done nonstop for under $200 on Delta, or $135 on whatever "Frontier" is.
EDIT: In fact you can go from New York to Las Vegas for under $200, round-trip, which is considerably farther.
It's probably important to be specific when I say "quality." By that I'm referring to ease of purchase, fair baggage prices, web/app UX, on/off-flight customer service including pilot communication with passengers, and even landings (as a pilot, I am absolutely judging beyond "did we get to the ground safely or not"). Price and seating are secondary for me, although I certainly understand why they are list-toppers for others.
I suspect flying up front on any of the majors is fine. Economy experience is driven by a race to the bottom price-wise, but if you want cheap travel, it’s readily available. If you want comfortable travel, that’s also on offer.
I flew Frontier the first time this Spring - was helping ferry an open cockpit biplane from Colorado to Illinois - and it was a stupid cheap one way fair. I really can't think of a single perk Frontier did not try and up charge a fee for. Boarding, luggage, carry on, seat assignment... I'm sure there were others. Funny enough, the guy I was ferrying with also picked the cheapest seats in the plane, so we ended up next to each other on the flight out. I was fully prepared too wear the kevlar helmet on the flight rather than pay the $60 carry on fee.
What's so awful about United?
My point was that even though the regular flights are similarly priced in the US and Asia, the quality in the US is so much worse. I now see that my attempt at explaining this discrepancy had some flaws, but what other explanations do you suggest?
The fact seems to be that even the best US Airlines are significantly worse than the ones in other places. When the best rated ones are hovering around average, there is something wrong.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/04/22/a-lack-of-compe...
I'm not so sure people do it any different elsewhere. I mostly fly in Europe and have definitely never considered anything else than price and suitable flight times. I consider all airlines to provide the same standardized service. Yes I'd pick BA over Ryanair, but wouldn't pay extra for it.
A lot of people I know and myself choose to pay more for a better experience.
It's not always about the race to the bottom in my opinion.
Ryan Air, EasyJet, and other discount airlines suggest that Europe cares significantly more about price.
As far as I understand, the reason for this is that foreign airlines are not allowed to fly US domestic routes, and most US people don't fly international which means they don't know that things could be better.
It also seems like people in the US to a greater extent than other countries only cares about ticket price, which means that even if an airline wants to improve their quality they can't use it to compete because customers will simply not see them, since they sort by price on the travel site and pick the first one on the list.