Isn't that their whole game? If you're going to fly them you should know it.

They have the cheapest fares, but they do that by upselling everything and any mistake will be expensive. If that's worth it to you (and sometimes the cost difference is big enough for it to be worth it imo) then it can be a reasonable tradeoff.

Flying an extreme lost cost airline that's entire existence is predicated on this model and expecting them to act contrary to that is confusing to me.

A large chunk of people think that every product should be certified as 100% effective and that just being able to read two numbers and see which one is the smaller number is the absolute maximum amount of work that should be required to be an informed customer of any product on the planet. Any defect in the product is "a scam," yet, anyone who pays anything more than the absolute minimum viable option is a total sucker. It's honestly a very strange way to view the world that I don't really understand. My source is that my mother is an ardent member of this group of peole. I find that it mostly just leads to the opportunity to complain about everything and build up a complex around you being "slighted" by the universe all the time.

I don't think it should (or can) be that simple, but I also think some of these airlines intentionally hide that "standard" services aren't included, and sometimes even the pricing.

E.g. [1]. I had no idea the pricing of carry-ons for Frontier changed depending on when/where you add it. It also makes it hard to compare prices across airlines, because I have to remember which charge for luggage and how much, so I can add it to the cost when I use flight finders.

Sometimes the changes are also something I wouldn't think about. E.g. I flew Southwest recently and had no idea that "open seating" was even a thing to check for.

I can see how people who don't fly regularly get confused. I fly a couple times a year and get surprised, I can't imagine the bewilderment of someone who flies once every 5 or 10 years.

I see your point, but also believe markets of all kinds function better where there is price transparency and it's easy to see what you get for what you're paying, as early in the process as possible.

Makes for a more efficient economy that benefits everyone, even the producers in the long run.

I'm actually fairly upset when airlines _don't_ do this. They're just leaving money on the table.

If you want to pick your seat, pay for it.

So you only get to sit with your loved ones if you have enough money? That's not a world I want to have any part in.

You only get to fly to see your loved ones if you have enough money too.

Ancillary revenue like seat assignment fees makes it so that more people can afford to see their loved ones.

This is only true if those seat assignment charges actually result in significantly lower ticket prices for everyone else, which is far from guaranteed.

No, you see, if they don't lower costs to the point of making no profit, then they will go out of business. Thats called competition and it's why no companies are able to buy shares back or pay dividends.

It's not guaranteed, but competition solves this problem, and competition has been empirically particularly effective in the airline industry.

There is a very good reason people fly Spirit/Frontier/Allegiant/Sun Country.

I'm not a fan of a lot of the fees that airlines impose--but then I also don't fly budget airlines or buy the cheapest tickets. Personally I'd probably be happier with a more premium flying experience and somewhat higher ticket prices--though not enough to routinely upgrade to business class. And I'm sure there are many people for whom air travel over Christmas to visit family is something of a luxury appreciate being able to spend less money.

>If you want to pick your seat, pay for it.

Ya its called a ticket, which are typically received in exchange for money. Should airlines also charge a disembarking fee? pay up or don't get off the plane? Seems like that's more money left on the table, captive audience and all.

You're still going to get to where you want to go and you'll still get a seat. That's the service you're paying for.

Disregarding the kidnapping part of your straw man: we also do already charge for priority disembark. This is why premium seating is typically near the boarding door.

> You're still going to get to where you want to go and you'll still get a seat. That's the service you're paying for.

The service I'm paying for includes an assigned seat, just like my ticket to the movies does. Its not justifiable for an airline - A federally regulated industry, not some mom and pop local business - to intentionally degrade the quality of their product to nickle and dime their customers.

Lets expand your premise a little: Should toll roads charge families extra tolls if they are in the same car together? There's revenue there - a family is certainly getting more use out of the "privledge" of traveling together than two strangers, or one person. Should NFL stadiums, movie theaters, concerts charge extra for booking seats that are adjacent? Revenue and 'Value' there as well. How about hotels? Trying to book 3 rooms for a company-conference visit, it'll be $100 for the first room, $250 for the second, and $500 for the 3rd.

> federally regulated industry

Regulations are primarily there for safety concerns, not you complaining about what is honestly a non-issue. If you don't want to pay for premium seats just don't pay for them??

But on that note, airline deregulation in the US has been the best thing that has ever happened to air travel. It is now far, far more accessible to travel by air. The revealed customer preference is that very few, if any, people want to go back to being forced to pay the old fares, even if the seats were bigger and the service was better.

> The service I'm paying for includes an assigned seat, just like my ticket to the movies does

Frontier is pretty upfront about this. You certainly have absolutely no guarantee of sitting next to somebody without paying for it one way or another. You get a seat. You don't get to choose your seat. Some theatres also do charge extra for choosing seats, and the ones that don't market themselves as premium theatres.

> some varying strawmen

I certainly don't think any of these techniques should be regulated. I can certainly see a surcharge if you require adjoining rooms in a hotel.

>Regulations are primarily there for safety concerns, not you complaining about what is honestly a non-issue. If you don't want to pay for premium seats just don't pay for them??

Regulations are also there to curtail monopolistic or "anti-competitive" behavior. What is nickel and diming people who don't have an alternative anything but abusing a monopolistic position? In a healthily competitive market[0] this could be adequately adjusted for.

> some varying strawmen

Politely refrain from cursory and trite dismissals - I have engaged with your points in good faith but you do not seem to be doing me the same courtesy. Why is it you consider these to be either unrealistic or patently unacceptable but airlines splitting up families is neither?

[0]E.g. movie theaters have majorly moved over the last decade or so to assigned seating, because this provides a better experience -- a competitive advantage and because trying to rent seek via price discrimination would see them lose customers.

The ticket in this case is for a flight, not a particular seat on that flight.

Think of it like buying lawn seating at a concert. Best spot is taken? Tough luck.

With a general admission concert ticket, your grouping still remains intact. I haven't flown in a while (thankfully), but the original comment makes it sound like they sell you an unassigned seat ticket, but then assign you a specific sometime down the road, perhaps maliciously.

The concert analogy is close but not perfect because the problem is that grouping necessarily puts you into premium seats.

If they can sell aisle and window seats at a premium, you can't allow people to group for free without putting people in relatively more premium seats for free.

The scale of airline seats (on a single flight) and concert tickets is incredibly different anyway, and different forms of price discrimination are required.

Southwest is an example of general admission applied to airline seating.

By the time you're calling non-middle seats "premium", we've already lost. We should aim to have markets that converge towards abundance rather than maximum extraction through things like price discrimination.

There's no reason to identify with these scumbags. It's indefensible that they sell seats which then aren't actually big enough to fit a person, whether it be their legs or their arms.

There's no airline seat that can't "fit a person", that's hyperbole. Fit any person, maybe. Fit without touching the person next to you, maybe. Fit without negotiating who uses the armrest or shared spaces with a stranger, maybe. I fly frequently, I'm 6'2", I'm medically obese. I fit into a middle seat. Don't love it, it's not the nicest, but it's less cramped than any public transit seat and most theater seats.

By your definition, it would be fine for them to sell the seat that was your lap to someone else, since your body still has enough volume to exist.

I've definitely flown in seats where I had to spread my legs (eg into the aisle) so me knees were not pressing up against the seat in front of me. And no matter which seat I sit in, my arms generally hang over the armrests. Talking about "the" armrest nicely demonstrates how much we've been saturated with this nonsense.

As I said, I'd have no problem if they charged as a linear combination of your weight and the sizes of your seat. But rather the setup is to gouge an outsized price for a comparatively small amount of room, because they'll catch some people at the margins over a barrel.

The idea that everything that can be differentially priced should is really annoying and leads to BS like this where everyone's life is worse to marginally increase profits.

No, it doesn't, it's still a matter of luck. When you get to a general admission event, you might find that there's a seat in the middle two rows up, two seats together and then another seat three rows away. I've certainly experienced this; and I've experienced cases where I'm lucky and we can sit together. But it's very typical for parties to leave single seats between and for you to be stuck with scattered single seats.

General admission is usually either standing room or lawn seats. I can't think of a show I've been to that had GA tickets and capacity defined by the number of hard seats, for exactly that reason. I'd believe it could happen, just not commonly.

There are many reasons you might want to split up your group at a GA event, like say some people wanting to push up to the front. Or in your seat example, if your group values being closer rather than being together in further back seats. But that's your own choice and not a result of the venue forcing you.

"We will actively make your life worse unless you pay us a premium in exchange for not doing that" is a terrible way to run any part of a society. If that's just how businesses are expected to behave, then we need to find ways to change that as a society.

There are classes of service and product just about everywhere.

Basically everyone flying coach on a commercial aircraft has a deliberately worse experience than if they paid for business class. The alternative is to have a single level of coach service only (which is fairly common on regional jets) or a single level of business class only service (which is rare--BA LCY to JFK as far as I know although I'm not sure that even exists any longer).

In cases like business class, the airline provides specific products and labor for those who paid more, in order to make their experience better. In the "deliberately split up parties" case, the airline provides labor for those who paid less, so as to intentionally make their experience worse. That makes this an entirely different scenario.

100% agreed. On my last flight where a family sat together without paying, I was literally crying and shaking. 'This isn't how capitalism works!' I cried out, but the flight attendant wouldn't have any of it.

I don't know how you managed, but on my next flight with families who dodge valid charges, I will raise my plastic cup to you good sir.

I can get that first rows of the plane or places with extra leg space could be charged, but charge for selecting the last row of the plane? thats just greediness

Personally I’ve always seen them allow you to get up and relocate as soon as cabin doors closes. But yea, you didn’t pay for a seat assignment so you might get stuck where-ever. They’re pretty clear about this…

Flown Frontier many dozens of times, since I usually travel alone with just a backpack. It’s probably saved me $5-10k in my adult life. Very often it will be $150+ less than the next cheapest option.

Speaking of relocating, I don't love having to pay to pick one's seat, but IMO the larger problem are the customers who choose to don't pay and assume they can bully other passengers into moving. Yeah it sucks you have to pay for the privilege, but it's not the other passenger's responsibility to handle it for you.

> they will separate you and your party even if there are available seats together

Airline seats are also assigned based on weight distribution. It's not just malice and greed.

Right now American seats basic economy in the middle seats and main in isle or windows. The system will try and seat family’s together if they are on the same reservation and the kids are under 15.

So you’re best to pay for seats if you want to be together. However, if you pay for seats and they change your flight on you, those seats are ‘lost and you need to call for a refund.