"Be a good person" is not a law I want anyone writing, because such a policy relies on the moral fortitude of random executive bureaucrats.

"Wrong" reason is subjective. Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially. Every hole in that increases costs far beyond the refunds themselves further down the line.

Air travel is not a high margin, luxury product, it's a lot margin mass market product with tons of competition - ergo costs are cut wherever possible. When you force airlines to take on costs for moral reasons, they basically are obligated to find as narrow an application of the moral reasoning as possible to keep costs down.

> Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially.

Wait. I don’t understand you. “Nonrefundable” means to me that you who bought a ticket can’t decide to not fly and ask for your money back.

If the airline for whatever reason decides to not fly the route, or doesn’t have the capacity then that is a different thing altogether. Are you arguing that it is okay for an airline to take your money, do not provide you with the service promised and keep your money?

> Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially.

This is 100% false. Southwest Airlines is one of the most profitable airlines in the US and their refund policy for refundable flights is a full refund up to 10 mins before the flight. For nonrefundable flights you get full credit if you cancel up to 10 mins before your flight, with no additional fees.

During the pandemic, ALL airlines moved to full credit with no change fees if you cancelled your flight. Previously they would have absurd $200 change fees or loss of your flight.

The idea that airlines can’t survive with flexible, consumer friendly policies is a lie. Things like the check in fees or fuel surcharge are pure profit.

The airlines were buoyed by PPP loans.

Which didn’t even fully cover the dramatic drop in customers let alone these policy changes.

What people forget is companies are in competition, if every airline is forced to refund ticks then the industry simply reaches a new equilibrium with very slightly higher ticket prices. However, if any airline defects to worse customer service they all end up doing the same. Thus the need for customer focused regulations.

Airlines did not qualify for PPP loans. They did receive substantial direct support from the federal government however. PPP "loans" were reserved for businesses with less than five hundred employees that weren't worth very much (relatively speaking) either.

So even better than PPP loans??

Probably. All told the government basically covered 18 months of airline payroll expenses but the airlines had to pay about 25% of that back. PPP "loans" were intended as payroll support for a shorter period with 100% forgiveness in most cases.

No it's not 100% false, it's about 70% correct, refunds are in (expiring, non-transferable) flight credits not money-back. The preceding poster said "your money back" not "flight credits".

Flight credits expire (with US carriers, typically in 12 months, sometimes within only 3 months (Spirit), with European carriers, sometimes up to 3 years), and cannot be transferred to any other passenger [0], unlike even airmiles; many passengers are unaware of both of those and airlines do not point it out, and rely on the fact that passengers may not realize till the credit has expired.

Just because an airline only initially offers (restricted, expiring) travel credits, doesn't mean much; in some cases [1] passengers may be entitled to an actual money-back refund: (a) canceled flight b) passenger has documented medical circumstance c) cancellations due to Covid d) possibly other circumstance).

Southwest in 3/2022 unveiled its long-awaited new fare category "Wanna Get Away Plus" whose key perk is the ability to transfer flight credits, which Southwest calls travel funds (which sounds like intentionally misleading language, but anyway). But again, SW charge more for WGA+.

> Southwest Airlines... refund policy for refundable flights is a full refund up to 10 mins before the flight.

But that's the minority case: only Southwest's Anytime and higher fares are (money-back-)refundable, and they are typically way more expensive (2.5-4x) than non-refundable WGA fares. I can't find data but AFAIK most SW non-business passengers are WGA fares.

So the statement:

>> Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially.

is in the general case true.

(One well-known travel hack with SWA for frequent travelers who didn't know their departure dates 3 weeks in advance used to be to buy 3+ different non-refundable tickets spaced out by say a week each, then refund whichever tickets you didn't end up needing. This was still cheaper than one Anytime fare.)

  [0]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2022/03/24/southwest-flights-new-fare-wanna-get-away-plus/7143951001/
  [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/advice/2020/10/09/flight-vouchers-yours-expiring-soon-what-to-do/5907794002/

I fly a lot. But only on Delta and American. So I can’t speak to the other airlines. But they both have three tiers of tickets for the same main cabin seating. For Delta those are basic, main and main refundable.

Looking at a random domestic flight. The difference between the three tiers are about $30-$45 each.

Never buy Basic. But if you at least by the middle tier, while the tickets aren’t refundable, you can change the tickets without paying a fee or cancel a flight and get a credit that’s good for year.

The network works fine with people cancelling and changing flights all of the time.

The difference is a lot more, I usually see >100. But even for a cheap flight that was 138 jet blue basic, it's 60 for the middle tier and 110 extra for the refundable.

The middle tier is the real price in my opinion. The only reason the basic tier is there is as upsell opportunity and meant to be punishing.

I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive. But aren’t those the ones who can least afford to lose money if something happens?

> I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive.

Anecdata, but I believe most “basic” tickets on the big US airlines were paid for by someone other than the flyer. If an individual themselves were price sensitive, they’d fly a budget airline like say Spirit more than likely.

It's expensive to be poor—the good old "Vimes Boots Theory of economic unfairness".[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Also see: I always suggest young people with limited but stable income to buy newer cars with warranties. They can least afford unexpected repairs.

Exactly. Basic Economy fares were created by airlines to artificially prevent them losing rankings against competitors in the results box for OTEs like Google Flights, Kayak/Booking Holdings, Skyscanner/Trip.com.

I've had a customer rep openly admit to me that they don't expect that anyone should ever actually fly this fare, and strongly discourage them for "satisfaction reasons".

Yet another weasely practice I found out the hard way recently was that some airlines rules (e.g. JetBlue) intentionally restrict it so that if one leg on a return ticket is Basic Economy, the other one must be too (even if it's priced $$ higher, as was in my case. It tooks me 2hrs of searches mysteriously failing when I tried to checkout ("Rule XXX does not allow this itinerary" and then it invalidates your entire flight search incl. seat assignments). Like the website couldn't tell you upfront. I called the support number and offered to show them a screenshot of the price difference and they didn't care. It was intentionally impossible to find the cheapest roundtrip price for my itinerary on their own website for any economy search, because their internal search engine typically shows the "cheapest economy fare" which will invariably tend to be basic economy for one segment; and of course this result is garbage if you have bags, which their engine doesn't even allow you specify. So you use a third-party OTE search engine.)

It's amazing the number of opaque anti-consumer practices the US airline industry gets away with.

The only legit use-case for a Basic Economy fare is a price-sensitive last-minute passenger who's 100% sure of their travel date(s)/one-way and has no luggage. Essentially what standby (or compassionate fares) used to be back in the 1990s, before the industry quietly killed those off.

Haha. As long as lobying is legal this will not happen.

The laws are basicaly made by those companies.