Why is it news that the airlines are charging a whopping $10 more to fly the Sunday after Thanksgiving? Because it's an opportunity to show airline customers kvetching about ten bucks and whining about how the evil airlines are gouging them with fees?
As far as I can remember, the airlines have always charged a little more to.travel on high-volume days. It's basic supply and demand, folks -- on the days that everyone wants to travel, the airline takes advantage of the scarcity of seats to up their revenue a little bit. What's wrong with that? You want a cheaper ticket? Take another half day off from work and travel at 10am on the following Monday. You'll pay less and probably have the added bonus of a flight that isn't packed to the rafters with screaming kids and armrest-hogging fatsos. Hell, you may even get a row to yourself.
And no whining about how dismal the flying experience is. Of course it sucks. It sucks because everyone has gotten so used to paying 300 bucks for a round-trip JFK-LAX ticket that the airlines are backed into the corner of eliminating your bag of Chex Mix and charging you to check a bag just to stay financially afloat for another month. You wanted to pay the equivalent of bus fare to jet cross-country in a few hours? Then a bus ride is what you'll get.
Last week I went online to see what flights I wanted to take for my upcoming trip to LA, and yes, there were round-trip fares as low as $300. Then I clicked over to business class fares and the price jumped to $2500-$3000. First class was something like 5 grand. I've taken those flights before, and they are always full. So those thirty or so passengers in first and business class represent about 2-3x the gross revenue of the 150 passengers in coach.
I've been fortunate enough to fly business class to California for work, and I'm well aware that I won't arrive any faster than someone in coach, I have to use the same crappy, cramped bathroom, and I'm breathing the same stale recycled air as everyone else. You want to know what that extra two+ grand bought my company? The "privilege" of boarding the aircraft early (so I can sit in the tin tube even longer!), no checked baggage fees, or even better, plentiful overhead space so I needn't worry about checked bags, all the liquor I might want, gratis, a nice hot 3-course meal with real silverware, one of those personal video thingamajigs, and best of all, a seat that reclines nearly all the way, so after I've drunk myself into a stupor over breakfast I can pass out for the rest of the flight. Oh, and the warm nuts. Don't forget about the warm nuts. You can add that up as many times as you want, it still doesn't add up to 2 grand's worth of extras. Where does the rest of it go? As far as I can remember, no one's ever come around offering hand jobs up there in business or first, so it must be subsidizing all those $150-per-leg seats back in coach. Not to mention paying the flight crew's paltry salaries, maintenance and fuel costs, ground staff at both ends, baggage handlers, airport tariffs, and those aggravating TSA agents who want to confiscate my Jergen's and nail clippers.
I watched a show on cable (can't remember which channel, maybe CNBC?) "Inside American Airlines" and they ran down the numbers on one of those JFK-LAX round trips, and at the end of the day, the total profit for the airline for that particular aircraft was something like 200 bucks.
So you know what? Stop acting like flying cross-country is a basic human right that is being insulted by an airline charging you $3 for a can of Pringles or $10 because you want to fly on the busiest travel weekend of the year.. If you want a better flying experience, put your money where your mouth is and buy it. Are you willing to pay a couple hundred dollars more for your ticket?
I didn't think so.
3 comments:
Having flown United cattle-class across the Pacific numerous times and come through unscathed, those ads that tout personal lie-down couches if you fly first class make me want to puke.
Going coach is just fine most of the time, depending on the equipment (Coach in an American Airlines MD-80 is a special form of torture that I think is banned by the Geneva convention, but in a 757, it's quite comfy). But if I am flying 10,000 miles and my company is paying for that First Class recliner, who am I to say "no"?
I don't care until the flight gets, like, really long. My wife flew to Australia and back a couple of years ago, and she said Qantas was in her face with something really excellent to eat or drink about every five minutes, and if you asked for anything at all a team of starched bowing lackeys appeared with your choice of six.
Post a Comment