GUWonder

Talk about a non-sequitur.

What I provided was a characterization evidenced by the statement which I quoted. Faulty logic in my posts in this thread? No, not at all.

If you understand the rules of classical logical reasoning, it's certainly not showing itself in your two most recent posts quoting mine. Just saying.

pinniped

Where are all of these routes with the excess UA E+ seats? As a Star Gold who mainly gets E+ assignments from the lounge agent (the website and mobile app don't allow partner elites to book E+), I find it pretty full almost all of the time.

Of course I realize that much of the "payment" for the seats is in the form of flying enough to reach a native UA elite status as opposed to a direct cash payment for that one flight. But still...from what I can tell, E+ is financially popular...so much so that DL and AA have gone down a similar path after seeing a few years of UA E+ results.

Anyway, it's pretty clear to me that the U.S. airlines are doing whatever they can to increase fares and ancillary fees. They have a friendly (to them) political climate that facilitates the removal of competition, so they will seek to grow their revenues and profits through oligopoly pricing and a favorable supply/demand model. That's a shift from 10-15 years ago when they sought to grow through market share, adding supply and competing on fare.

If I was a stockholder, I'd probably favor the current model. It's less risky in a slow-growth economy. Spend more money on politicians, not new airplanes. As a passenger, naturally, I don't like it as much...

tjl

I remember some years ago, some of the United Express subcontracted regional jets had over 40% of the economy seats designated as Economy Plus. Those flights often assigned non-elites into the Economy Plus seats at check-in (but without choice of seat).

I also remember a flight to Hawaii where I was upgraded to an Economy Plus seat despite being just a General Member. Apparently, the flight had few enough elites that they used General Member status (versus not even being in United's frequent flyer program) to select who got the upgrades to Economy Plus (but without choice of seat).

Tchiowa

OK. Let's look. You made the negative remark about ideologues in response to several posters, including me, saying that the reason the airlines are making seats smaller is that passengers are choosing low cost over comfort.

So if we are right then when presented with the choice of E- and E+ those people would choose E- because it's lower cost even though uncomfortable.

If you are right then when presented with the same choice they would choose E+ preferring to pay a bit more for comfort.

Thus my comment that if you were right then E+ would fill up. Which it doesn't. And, of course, wanting to maximize revenue, the airlines would increase the ratio of E+ seats to E- seats. Which they don't.

You said that wasn't logical. Clearly it is.

And, given the fact that there are far more E- seats on planes than E+ and yet the cheaper E- seats fill up much faster, our conclusion is right.

tjl

American Airlines' More Room Throughout Coach may be another example of the relatively limited appeal of a roomier economy class seat.

Tchiowa

You're right. And yet, for a relatively small amount of money, they can get some of that "lost comfort". Yet they choose not to. They vote with their wallets that they want the cheapest product they can find regardless of the comfort then they complain non-stop about how uncomfortable it is and that it's all a plot ffrom some one-eyed, drooling, fang-toothed CEO who is dining on baby seals and unicorns and just wants to steal our money.

mmff

My problem with it is that not only do they complain, they want to make it law for everyone else:

GUWonder

What you provide above is an off-base, non-sequitur; and it comes across as a nice attempt to put words in someone else's mouth to put up your own straw-man to knock over. Nice try, but your response doesn't logically fly counter to my statement. My statement was about what exposes the nature of the propaganda used by pro-airline industry ideologues.


Welcome to representative democracy in action. Not my problem.

mmff

I came to realize that the cheapest frozen lasagna available at my local supermarket does not taste as good as the most expensive one. I could just pay for the better product but maybe I should try to get the cheapest one banned for everyone instead?

GUWonder

If health and safety and basic service levels are considered to be compromised by what is on offer there too, then don't be surprised by the fact that some calls for legislative, regulatory and/or judicial intervention on those matters happen not to fall just on deaf ears. If you happen to fancy or live just in a place where representative democracy is not the governing order of the day, then that is a different matter.

The government rather routinely bans unhealthy/unsafe products/offerings and institutes/supports basic service standards -- even when having no such basic standards is of course theoretically possible too.

mmff

Safety and health concerns are not part of this discussion, comfort is.

In my comparison, I specifically mentioned the taste of the lasagna and nothing else. You then jumped to the convenient conclusion that health and safety standards are compromised in a cheaper product which does not taste as good.

For someone who complained about a straw man fallacy a few posts back, you did a great job putting your own straw man up and knocking it over.

In a democracy there are many services and products that do not satisfy the whole population in the same way. Moreover, there are many services and products that part of the population would not enjoy and consequently does not purchase. These are not sufficient conditions to ban these services and products.

Like it or not, passengers can currently choose between a cheaper inferior product and a more expensive superior product on board. I choose the latter to attend my meetings, while my son chooses the former to backpack on a tight budget with his friends. My son told me once that he would happily take a 12-hour flight on FR conditions if it meant saving a few bucks for his next trip. This sounds completely crazy to me but why exactly should the government ban a business from catering to people like him? Having a choice is what democracy is all about after all.

As I said before, don't seek to impose higher fares on others just because you cannot fit in the seat they are willing to pay for.

GUWonder

Safety and health concerns are part of this discussion too.

The more people there are crammed into a plane and the narrower the aisles in the planes, the more heightened the risk for injuries and deaths in the event of an accident where evacuation time is of the essence. That is a safety concern which is part of this discussion.

The more people's movement is constrained on a flight and the more people there are who are in more constrained seats, the chances of a passenger being hit by DVT does anything but drop. That is a health concern which is part of this discussion.

mmff

Is it? I have just checked and no one mentioned health or safety concerns on this thread apart from you.

Commercial aircraft design is strictly regulated by the competent national authorities. Evacuation procedures are part of the compulsory certification. In the US, for example, the competent authority is the FAA. You can read about the FAA and aircraft evacuations here (first result on Google). In particular:

In what concerns commercial aircraft safety, I would find it unwise to trust the opinion of a non-expert such as yourself over the statement of the competent official authorities. Therefore, I disagree that the new seat layouts constitute a safety concern pertinent to this discussion.

From the British National Health Service:

Therefore, your statement regarding DVT has never been proven and it should not be taken into account in this discussion either.

Next time you want to justify the need for others to subsidize your bigger seat, at least make up facts that cannot be dismissed so easily.

GUWonder

Really? You should check again, as you clearly missed the obvious.

Either way, it's not like you get to decide what is or is not part of this discussion. This is neither a monologue nor a forum for just one position on this matter.

tjl

Of course, many people are not long legged enough to find a few extra inches of seat pitch to be a significant difference in comfort.