pinniped

One man's "race to the bottom" is another man's "race to extremely affordable mass transit."

I'm about to leave work at go pick up my daughter at the airport. She's arriving from Detroit on a $34 ticket I bought for her a few weeks ago. It has never in my life, prior to Spirit Airlines, been possible to fly DTW-MCI one-way for $34. In fact, thanks to NW/DL anticompetitive fortress hub tactics, it was usually $300+ for a one-way ticket. The Spirit seat is tiny, but she's 5' tall. There is no free food. She can't check a bag. Her backpack goes under her seat. The FFP is so worthless we don't even bother with it. But we don't care: we're happy the $34 ticket exists. Me personally? I would prefer to *not* fly Spirit myself, but lots of people have no problem with it, so why shouldn't it exist?

Why stop the "race to the bottom" on things like inflight comfort and amenities when that's clearly what an overwhelming majority of the public wants? You know what else is uncomfortable: a seat on the NYC subway. Yet we've long ago decided that we prefer uncomfortable seats and a lot of people standing during the ride to posh seating and much higher fares.

F/J airline seats still exist, for people who want that. In fact, they're generally getting cheaper in real terms, and the product is getting better on many carriers.

I fail to see the issue here.