I suspect it's more a function of cost and class. The people who pay $500 to fly aren't the same as the people who pay $2.50 to be on the subway, or jump the turnstile altogether.

500$ is a quite average price for the country I live in. Of course I don't mean cheap airlines, only the national ones.

> it's more a function of cost and class

A notable difference between economy and front cabin is the passengers. Mostly good: pets and kids are uncannily well behaved. Sometimes bad, e.g. more arguing.

I still can find 10$ Ryanair tickets...

The average passenger likely paid far more than $10, so I think their point stands, sort of. I would add that trains for longer than a few hours in many western countries often cost more than the typical price of a Ryanair ticket, so I’m not sure the class difference is very large in some countries.

Seems to me that anyone under age 25-ish has headphones permanently grafted to their ears. I exaggerate a bit but like young people rarely forget their phones because they notice within a few minutes that they don't have it, people are increasingly using headphones so much that they will not need to remember them.

My kids were constantly losing wallets, money, credit cards, keys, drivers licenses, etc. but none of them ever lost a phone. I expect headphones will go the same way soon.

For older folks, yeah. I often leave the house without my phone, because I go for hours at a time not using it.

I also suspect that the flight crew more actively enforcing rules than on a bus/train helps a lot.