Originally Posted by
pinniped
I guess it's a case of "we get what we pay for". In 1977, you'd probably do that Hawaii trip in a 747 and get nice service and good wine. And the ticket would cost $3,000 in 2014 dollars. Now we get "free" (kind of) tickets to Hawaii just for signing up for a credit card. Or we watch the fare specials and get there for $500 R/T. But we pay for cheese and drink swill for those five hours. If I had to accept either extreme, I guess I'll take today's version... Various attempts at that "middle ground" kind of airline never seem to get farther than, say, the Midwest Express type of operation from the 1990's. There aren't enough people willing to pay a little bit extra to enable that kind of airline to really scale up.
While I'm generally in agreement with your sentiments (which is why I'll pay a bit more for comfort or an upgrade), I think your estimate of inflation since 1977 is quite a bit high, or my recollection of how much a round-trip flight to Hawaii used to cost on United is a bit low.
Officially, cumulative inflation from 1977 to 2014, using the Consumer Price Index, was 286%. That would mean a ticket costing $3,000 in 2014 dollars would have cost about $777 in 1977 dollars. My recollection is that the fares I paid RT to Hawaii in those days were under $400, or around $1500 in current dollars.
Of course, I shopped for lowest fares, and I think paying ~$400 then would have taken a bigger bite out of my wallet than paying $1500 would today, as I was just getting started back then (I was graduated from law school in 1973).
As I said, though, that's just a nit-pick; I'm in agreement with your general point that, adjusting for inflation, fares are cheaper today than they were, but I do think we've lost a lot in the process.