Re:Airlines Are Just Banks Now
by cratermoon on Thursday September 21, 2023 @01:52PM
(#37601343)
> IT should be a huge amount of efficiency in operations, at least 20% of the former cost.
I doubt anyone who has worked as a programmer in the industry, myself included, would say that IT is hugely more efficient. The majority of the commercial passenger airline industry still revolves around Sabre: created in 1960 by American Airlines and still, to this day, unable to handle text with diacritics or non-roman alphabets. Everything is wrappers and layers around Sabre, and Sabre charges for every transaction.
In an efficient market, Sabre would have disappeared after deregulation. Instead, more and more airlines signed on.
I will grant you heavy regulation of the 1970s was a price inefficiency. But I'd need some representation of cartel market/regulatory capture price inefficiency of the current situation to compare. I suspect it isn't that much.
Fuel costs are probably higher, but engine and plane design efficiencies should have overcome that. IT should be a huge amount of efficiency in operations, at least 20% of the former cost. Then we look at how worse service is now and how much more cramming / leg room reduction, fees, etc. I'd have to know if you "ticket costs half in real dollars" figure includes basic "user fees" or not.
Here's Robert Reich on airline travel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTzaMXXelew
Yes, the liberals favority economist. But I agree with his fundamental arguments about modern air travel and the oligarchical / cartel nature of virtually all of our markets for goods and services.