How we buy plane tickets and why it's ruining air travel

How do you expect consumers to view flying as anything but a commodity when I can pay 2x more then the customer sitting next to me? The airlines, with their byzantine and constantly shifting prices, have totally ruined any correlation between 'price' and 'value'. It's completely arbitrary from the point of view of the consumer. I might end up an old plane with a horrible seating configuration, or a brand new plane with plenty of legroom and in-flight entertainment. All on the same airline, between the same cities. My experience has no correlation with the price I'm paying, unless I decide to pony up for business class. Even then, among business class, there's a big difference among airlines.<p>The industry is so concerned with extracting the maximum amount per customer, they forget that it's more important to grow their customer base.<p>That said, I've been flying almost exclusively Virgin (America/Atlantic) for the last year or two, and they are definitely a cut above. Virgin America has an entire fleet of brand new planes, comfortable seats, personal in-flight entertainment and wifi, and great staff. Virgin Atlantic has Premium Economy, which is so worth the extra few hundred dollars (as opposed to the 2x for business) for flights to Europe. Here, at least, I can justify the price difference, at least vis-a-vis competing airlines.

One thing I think that this analysis misses is the fact that, for most people, you're not going to enjoy the flight no matter what. At that point most people shift from "maximize enjoyment" mode, where paying more for something better is more rational, to "minimize costs mode." If I'm going to spend 5 hours being uncomfortable whether I spend $300 or $500, what's the point in paying more?<p>I think there's a certain enjoyment threshold below which something becomes "unpleasant," and moving from one state below that threshold to another state also below that threshold isn't as valuable as a similar state shift would be if the initial state happened to be above that threshold.

I'm 6'7" (200 cm), so being stuck in a typical economy class seat is <i>extremely</i> uncomfortable for me.<p>On my next long trip (from Minneapolis to Italy), I chose to spend about double for business class, because the prospect of 10 hours flying in economy literally terrifies me.<p>When I fly to Taiwan I make a point of traveling on Eva (a Taiwanese airline) which has a class between economy &#38; business (like Virgin). It's well worth the extra cost for a 12 hour flight.<p>I would gladly pay a premium for exit row or galley seats with more legroom. I still don't understand why airlines don't consistently sell these seats in advance.<p>In years when I'm flying a lot, I <i>always</i> stick with the same airline. Getting elite status gives you free upgrades and first crack at some of the more comfortable seats.<p>All of which is to say that price &#38; schedule are not really my #1 considerations.

One thing that always bugged me about air travel in the US is the time you spend on the ground, standing in queues, pulling your shoes off, putting them back on again.<p>You'll say that this is for better security. It's not an effective way to achieve better security. In Europe, queues are shorter and people only have to remove their shoes when there's a reason for it. Europe has not exploded yet - put it down to behavioral profiling, making good use of extant security measures and (for the most part) having enough personnel to avoid the building up of queues.<p>To pick the restaurant analogy, it has the same effect on the airlines as it would for a restaurant to have pseudo-policemen sit in front of their door and bully everyone, building up a long queue.

I'd add a fourth factor: The fact that we travel more frequently.<p>If you are flying something like once per decade flying might feel like an adventure in its own right and you may be willing to splurge a bit.<p>But the more often you need to fly between A and B, the more similar it becomes to taking the bus, subway or a taxi, all of which already are commodities.<p>I expect there is room for more "exclusive" experiences at a higher price, just like there is for groceries. Or as with limousine rental vs taxi.<p>But fundamentally it's just transport - I'm flying because I need to get somewhere else quickly. If I were traveling for the experience I would probably go by motorcycle, train or boat instead.

Interesting post, but what was missed is that corporate travel accounts for a large degree of airline ticket spend - and those values (price and schedule) are that BigCo business cares about.<p>The post was written from the perspective of the flyer also being the purchaser (either leisure or small business travel) but when tickets are purchased for you, or you have to purchase within a financial policy all that it comes down to is price (and to some extent, schedule).<p>The CFO doesn't care whether AirlineX has more comfortable seats than ArlineZ and isn't going to authorize purchases because of it.

&#62; The first is price, the second is schedule. Everything else is a distant third.<p>Not in my case.<p>1. Not an airline on my bad_list 2. Price 3. Schedule<p>E.g. I will not fly Air India, regardless of the price/schedule.<p>Keep playing around with #2 and #3 but do not screw up so much that you get on #1 or else I will boycott you for life.<p>Also when #2 and #3 are same, I have #4 - Airlines I like (JetBlue, SouthWest etc.).<p>Off topic but relevant: I always check out my plane through seatguru.com before I buy the tickets. Definitely helps maximize my comfort at no additional cost.

I've traveled to about 30 countries within Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Central America and a lot of travel within the US. Of course there have been hiccups along the way, but overall it's been pleasant and I just don't share the feelings with others that air travel is a horrible experience.<p>I believe my point of view stems from the happiness of being able to travel around the world so cheaply (even free with airline miles). This wasn't even possible until modern times and it is easy to take for granted.

How much will I pay for SFO to NYC? Well, that depends...is it more than two weeks out? Less than two weeks out? Is it a popular day to travel? Convenient route? Who else is flying? So many factors that make it difficult to know when to buy and what to expect to pay...<p>For example, something I've noticed recently: the SFO to NYC red-eye will be cheaper than the evening flights up until about 3-5 weeks before the day of travel. Then, the red-eye will suddenly jump to almost double the price of the other tickets.<p>All I can figure is that more than 3-5 weeks out, most of the people buying tickets are tourists, and tourists tend to not like taking red-eyes. Once you get inside the 3-5 week window, that buying pattern switches to primarily business travelers. For a business traveler, the red-eye means still getting in a full day of work before leaving, so they tend to favor that schedule.<p>The fact that the price fluctuates so rapidly, and depends more on the buying patterns of other consumers than on the product itself, makes plane tickets look an awful lot like a futures market! And you know what else is sold on futures markets?<p>...commodities.

It's a great article about something I've wanted to write about for a long time. I've been wondering why the airlines worked so hard to kill any differentiation and commoditize their business. The experience today is really similar on all airlines, with parts of it being <i>exactly</i> the same, outsourced away (ground handling, gates, security, lost luggage handling, etc).

I'm really sorry if it's a bit of an off-topic, but this thread seems like a good place to ask: anyone remembers this long and interesting multi-pages document (was posted on HN) about how prices on air tickets are calculated and how all this big system works? Can't find the link.

I think air travel is destined to be a commodity for most people. Typically when we are flying we are trying to get to another place, where we will be away from work and spending a lot of money. Think the trip to Disney World. Or your European vacation. By saving money on the flight we will have more money to spend at our destination.<p>I remember looking between Jet Blue and Continental for a flight to NYC recently. I had a great time with Jet Blue because they had TVs on board and I enjoyed the free wifi in their terminal when returning. But, price-wise Jet Blue would be $20 more than Continental. For me, the extra $20 I save could be used to eat out a couple more times in NYC so it was easy to forgo the in flight convenience for what I weighed as the greater use of my money.<p>I think that also, the capital intensive nature of the business which yields low returns on investment, in the context of being in a highly regulated industry with unionized employees makes risk taking pretty limited. So, most of the players just copy each other which also helps re-enforce the commoditized product that they produce.

For me, price is #1, and <i>everything</i> else is a distant third.<p>Then again, I'm not the target audience of this article. I fly rarely, and an airplane ticket represents a very sizable chunk of my income. Because of that, I will put up with a poor experience, and this is why I am not prepared to spend $10 more for the plane that gives the better 'experience'.

This post mentions loyalty programs for frequent flyers, but it completely underestimates their importance. The difference between business class and coach is so stark, just a reasonable chance at an upgrade completely decommoditizes the inventory. Because of this, the most profitable customers certainly aren't basing their decisions solely on price.<p>Myself, I always fly American, not because the coach experience is any better but because I've got about a one-in-four chance of getting upgraded to business class. Just a couple of days ago I got upgraded on my redeye back from SFO - well worth the $35 or so extra I paid for the seat vs. the equivalent flight on a competing airline. Slept like a baby, and I certainly couldn't have done that back in steerage.

You want to know what's <i>really</i> ruining air travel? Security. With e.g. TSA and their "exactly the wrong person for the job" approach to staffing, pricing scams (ever notice that right after you get out of the security check line, where they made you pour out your water, there is a store selling normal water for 5x the normal price?), etc., etc. the price for an airline ticket is basically asking you how much you'd be willing to pay to get gang raped. I hate flying now, and to the US most of all.<p>But I have a solution to fix all the problems (well, it would still be a commodity...): When you get to the airport, someone takes your ticket and gasses you. You wake up in your destination (or occasionally a totally random place, but that would still be better than what it's like now. Especially since you slept through it). That would solve everyone's problem. Who cares about seats, you can just make bays to stack the sleeping people in. You can carry more people. You can have a vastly smaller staff, pretty much just a pilot and a loading/unloading crew. For security you can do any check you need to but most will be unnecessary since the people wont be conscious.

I'm reading this article while staring at my confirmed boarding pass that reads, "Seat Request" right next to the shiny barcode.

seatguru.com addresses some of this already. Although, the limited extra info they provide doesn't often help to differentiate one flight from the other.

I buy Southwest always for one reason: no change fees. Every dollar I spend is applicable toward another fare if I don't go or want to change times. I spend more money sometimes, less money others, but always have confidence I'm not throwing money away or being nickel and dimed. Every single other airline focuses on profitability through obscurity and I simply can't stand that.