Originally Posted by
jackal
I think many people who were around in those days would dispute that passengers have gained massive improvements. Yes, wifi allows us to be more productive, and AVOD IFE is a nice way to pass the time, but in almost every other category, air travel today is much more of a mass transit experience than it was in previous decades.
So what exactly is bad about more people getting to fly, instead of airplane tickets being the province of the upper classes willing to drop multiples of what tickets cost now? Was the Chateaubriand from DEN to NYC in coach (complete with people chain-smoking on the plane) really worth the inflated ticket cost? Mass transit serves, well, the masses. Are hoi polloi unworthy of airplanes?
It would seem your assertion isn't borne out by, well, the entire existence of WN. A lot of people don't really give a hoot about a dinner on a two hour flight, free drinks and the big seat compared to getting to their destination at a reasonable cost. It seems that if people really objected to modern air travel, WN wouldn't have aced out full-service airlines from a lot of places.