duniawala

I have searched high and low about the survey airlines say they have done and many FTers support, that most customers prefer to be miserable in cramped coach seats over saving $40 or $50. Can anyone please send me a link to these surveys.

OTOH, Southwests decision to increase the seat width is very much welcomed.

pittpanther

You won't find such a survey, because it doesn't exist. It's always the standard argument on FT that passengers have no one to blame but ourselves, for the continued shrinkage of seat pitch and width. Blaming the victim is very prevalent on this board.

As if the choice between a $300 coach seat versus a $1000 first class seat is a real choice. Because those are usually my only options. That is not a real choice when I'm flying for vacation purposes. If I'm offered a better seat at a nominal upcharge, I might take it. But the upcharge is never nominal. And flight fares are almost always more driven by flight times, than by seat size.

And when flying for business, I am forced to select the lowest fare once I find a flight that suits my travel needs. I can't select first, or business, or economy plus. The airlines know this, since business people are their largest consumers.

CPRich

What travelers say with their money is more important to airlines than what they answer on a survey.

backprop

I'm curious about this because I've heard the same type of language many times before.

What do you consider "nominal upcharge" for a first class seat? For fun and completely scientific purposes, I took a seatguru map of an AA 737-800, and copy/pasted the first class section on top of coach. The 16 first class seats fit neatly on top of 36 coach seats.

So, at just the cost of space, without premiums for boarding, checked baggage, food, miles, and so on, a "no house edge" first class seat would be 16/36=2.25 times the price of a coach seat. Right off the bat, in your hypothetical scenario of a $300 coach seat (where do you see the 300/1000 example fares?), first class would be $675.

Would you consider $675 to fit within the nominal upcharge range of an upgrade?

Tchiowa

Customers vote for savings over comfort every time that they are presented with the option and choose the cheaper price. So the survey is in the ticket sales.

If you disagree, just pay the little bit extra for E+ seating. Then you have participated in the survey for comfort over price. But if you refuse to pay the extra for E+ then you have voted price over comfort.

But when the choice is $300 for E- or $350 for E+ then that is a real choice.

airplanegod

Unfortunately, not everyone does and we all get punished for it. I'd rather pay $50-$100 more domestically and a little more than that internationally to have decent legroom, free food, and a checked bag. Unfortunately it becomes a problem when domestically a E- ticket for example is $200 and E+ is $450+. Maybe i'm not the average customer but while I definitely consider price I usually never book the cheapest option.

Bingo.

RadioGirl

This.

If the ratio between E- and E+ is 350/300 = 17% more, that's one thing. I would do that.
If it's 450/200 = more than twice as much, that's different. That means my budget covers less than half the number of trips.

I can't (without actually making a booking, apparently) find out what the difference - on US domestic flights - is.

But internationally, QF offers (SYD-DXB one way) Y for A$1300 vs Y+ for A$2000 = 57% more for Y+. That means my budget would cover 2/3 the number of trips. (And the cheap Y fare already includes "free food and a checked bag".)

Yes, yes, yes I know that for US domestic, Y+ is just more legroom and on QF international Y+ is more a Business Lite. My point is there's no option for "just more legroom" on long flights, where it would really make a difference. And there's no option for a flight that, for ~17% more, offers more comfort. So it's ridiculous to claim that passengers won't pay for such options when they are not available.

duniawala

So what you are saying is the airline arbitrarily fixes the price so only the well heeled can pay the high price and force the rest to the lower priced ones. Thereby claiming the public prefers the low price, which is why they stuffed in more seats in the first place.

And we the public falls for this idiotic logic. makes sense.

The LCCs came in to offer those low payers an opportunity to fly. But why would one one want to fly internationally for 10-16 hrs flight in these cramped seats is beyond comprehension. I take Asian based or ME based airlines instead, where I get a decent seat, decent meals, smiling service, free booze and free checked baggage ( 2 pieces too) all within the ticket price. Try that with the big 3.

No wonder they are losing money.

Cloudship

The problem is, they are not. Profits are really good for the US big 3 right now.

I am sure there are surveys done, but much of this is not openly available, they are closely held by the airlines. But the real results come from what the airlines sell for seats. And the fact of the matter is that most people are not shelling out for first class seats - most of them are upgrades.

The problem here is as pointed out above - it is not an accurate measure of what people are willing to spend, because you only have two disproportionate choices. The whole E+/PE is a great example, and one the US airlines were slow to figure out. Supposedly, according to AA's experiment with more legroom throughout coach, none would spend more for extra legroom. Then United offered E+ as a perk. Then airlines like B6 offered it to everyone, and made a killing. Suddenly E+ is a huge product. International airlines have discovered the PE up sell and are doing quite successfully with it.

The problem with the domestic US airlines is that they are now operating on a scarcity principle. They are not trying to win customers by offering a better product - they are trying to create an artificial resource availability problem, and forcing a many passengers to pay as much as they can. This works short term, but in the long term you are killing the overall market. So a few years down the road, what we are going to see is either a whole new slew of airlines offering a better product and killing off the big 3, or the big 3 suddenly caught in a cycle of dropping passenger numbers and more governmental support having to be offered. Either way, the current situation is not stable. A new offering will come out.

airplanegod

^
Something down the road, whether it is more airlines entering the market, another transportation method coming out, another economy collapse, or even a boost in the economy will force some of these airlines to either rethink their current business model or close up shop. As they say, nothing lasts forever.

CPRich

The problem is that the ratio of the costs needs to cover the ratio of the seats to remain revenue neutral. In reality, its the ratio of the actual revenue received - having to move E- tickets into E+ seats because you couldn't sell E+ prices is the worst of both worlds.

Again, if the flying public valued the extra space - not in a "do you want extra space" survey question, but with their wallet - it would happen. I think there is enough data that shows it doesn't.

Look at initernational long-haul. There's a race to the top for F/J space, seata comfort, amenities, etc., because the market will support it and someone will pay it. They aren't doing it for fun. That market is supportive of additional features through revenue.


If you believe this is the dynamics behind airline pricing, and not the fundamental economic principle of supply and demand, along with purchaser utilization preference, then there's really no point in continuing the conversation. "Evil Big Airline" as an answer to everything is a futile conversation.

CPRich

Hyperloop, baby!!

Unfortunately, airline travel has huge entry barriers and minimal viable substitution options, so I don't see this happening any time soon.

Cloudship

But the question is - where is this data? Everyone claims there is lots of data. But every example that I have ever seen is not a solid argument. Rather, it is information presented in such a way to prove an already existing theory. The problem comes form the extrapolation of existing data. We don't know the actual answer simply because there is no opportunity to prove it. That is why the free market is not working here - there is no opportunity to prove the case.

Tchiowa

Well said. It's like discussing politics with someone who keeps spouting phrases from 1960s Berkeley.

The free market is working fine. Problem is that you, and many other FF here don't agree with the majority. You are losing because the majority voted for cost over comfort and you would prefer a different choice. But the airlines can't have 37 different seat configurations on every plane to accommodate every permutation of what an individual likes or doesn't like. Airlines have tried to have more space at a higher price and keep coming back because they can't sell enough seats.

Cloudship

Where and when?

I have yet to see a an answer to that. Only one airline has ever offered an alternative, and up until they panicked during 9/11 and moved away from that model they were doing very well even with an extremely limited and sub-optimal network. The fact is no, there has not been that option, and no, it is not offered and people have not chosen not to use it. E+ and PE have proven that out.

The more that the airlines and financial pundits continue to carry that tune that people won't pay more, the less and less believable it becomes that they are really capable of surviving under fair rules. At some point people are going to demand that there is reform, and the old airlines and the old FAA go away and are replaced. Just a matter of time.