dulciusexasperis

Jazzed91, I have no problem with airline's providing low cost seats that allow people to see more of the world. I agree 100% that it can open people's eyes to many things.

My concern is that in order to fly as I wish to fly, the options are getting fewer and forcing me into things like connecting flights vs. non-stop etc. When they talk about things like 'high-density cabins' and ULCCs, it is not a question of being able to 'avoid such an ULCC in accordance with the personal restrictions I have placed on myself', if they all end up there in the race to the bottom. There will be no choice available to avoid them. In a race to the bottom there is only one end result. Everything ends up at the bottom and that is where it appears to be going. There is no point in saying, "I would not travel on those flights, full stop", if that is all that is available, full stop.

I don't see any airline saying, 'we plan to increase the number of seats for comfortable travel at a reasonable price.' While I think Business/First with lie down seats may continue, it will only be at very high prices. It is the middle 'reasonable' seating that will be squeezed out. The ironic thing is that we will be back to a 2 class system. Economy or First. But the difference is that when we had only 2 classes 30+ years ago, even the Economy seats were reasonably comfortable and 2 checked bags, pillows, etc. were included. The new 2 class system will be Sardine and pay to bring your toothbrush on board vs. Luxury with the extras included and nothing in between.

capedreamer

YVRStarFlyer

I don't think we will go back to a 2 class system. We will still have econ, prem econ, business/first. PY will get better as demand gets higher. Delta is installing 48 PY seats on their international lone-haul planes and AC only has 24. Every time I fly YVR - HKG the PY cabin is always full. Sometimes, PY fares cost as much as Latitude fares on AC. I much rather pay for PY on international long-haul flights rather than Latitutde Econ. When demand is there, why would AC cut that cabin. J cabins will continue to improve on AC as J customers are continuing to see improvements on other carriers especially Asian carriers. Y cabins will become more and more uncomfortable until we get to the point where u have to bring you own seat and toilet paper on board or get charged a loonie per square.

Handcake

The OP is like a lot of people I work with. They will always pay for the cheapest possible ticket. Then they complain on facebook or at work when they get back from their trip.

I always ask them: "how much money did you save?" "Was it worth it?" Obviously if they are complaining so much about it, it probably wasn't.

I think AC has a pretty good product overall. I really love their J product. For routes that I fly, if I am going to be flying AC, I have decided to pay the extra cash and go for J. I don't mind economy, but I am getting older, fatter and my joints aren't as limber as they once were. I'd rather give up something else in my life and fly in comfort. I feel I have earned it at this point in my life.

Opportunity Cost is what it all comes down to. What do you value more? Decide that and go with it. Don't blame AC or other airlines for providing basic services. Others have decided that they value that basic service and those others seem to be a high enough number to fill planes for AC to do such a thing.

BlondeBomber

Well cheap may not be cheap for everyone for longer. Dynamic pricing may be at an airline near you.

Airlines Could Soon Start Charging Different Fares for Different People | Travel + Leisure

"Airline websites will be able to identify customers by their IP addresses and mine data for their flying history. The revenue management system would then create a person-specific fare based off criteria like loyalty status or business/leisure traveler. Loyal customers and leisure travelers would likely pay less, while those who are willing to pay more — like business travelers with a company credit card — would likely see higher prices.

However, before airlines implement a “pure” version of dynamic pricing, reports Travel Weekly, they have to move away from the legacy distribution system put in place after 1978 deregulation. Airline pricing has a limited number of fare classes, each with their own price points and restrictions. Airlines rotate which fare classes are available through their sale cycles. While current customers may believe their fare is unique, they’ve actually fallen into a specific fare class.

If airlines switch to dynamic pricing, each customer on the plane could, theoretically, pay a completely different price. As George Hobica notes in USA Today, dynamic pricing could make finding a good price on airfare even more confusing than it already is."

Plumber

Things are already like this picture in the article... many, many different price points on the same flight....It is just arrived at differently than as suggested in the article.

jc94

dulciusexasperis

How do I have a conversation with someone who apparently can't even understand what I am writing about???

I do not pay the cheapest possible ticket. I pay for Premium. But I would rather have the choice to pay more for a comfortable Economy seat with a reasonable pitch, width, extras included etc. as per was provided in the past. I would also prefer that they not continue to remove mainline flights and replace them with Rouge who are by Air Canada's own admission, a Low Cost Carrier. An LCC always provides the passenger with less. I don't want less.

I do not blame the airline for what has happened to Economy, I blame the people who have pushed them to provide less and less. Those are the people who 'always pay the cheapest possible (Tango and now Basic Economy) ticket.' It is the passengers who are driving it to the bottom, not the airline. They would be more than happy I'm sure to increase prices, profits and the quality of their product if the passengers let them do so.

If you can't even read and comprehend what I have been writing here, please don't waste your time with irrelevant comments.

rankourabu

You still haven't explained the difference between your flex Y seat and someone's tango Y seat onboard.
Apart from you spending extra on the same thing.

You are delusional that airlines would spend revenue from increased prices on increasing quality of product.

RangerNS

OP, you are confusing fare buckets (and thus "price") with cabins/seats and with service, on the ground and in the air. Over time and instantaneously.

Maybe 30 years ago "the cheapest possible" fare provided everyone with a better seat and a hot meal and luggage allocation. Today, the aircraft are safer, the cabin is better (pressure, lighting, noise, vibration), though the worst seats are worse. You get no meals or snacks.

If you want a seat in the back of yesteryear, you can get it, it is called "preferred" or even past that on some A/C, "premium". Buy a higher bucket fare, or just pay for the add-on. You can buy snacks. You can often (but I grant, not always) buy a hot meal. If you have checked bags, you can pay for them if you don't buy the higher bucket fares.

Your total price (in constant currency) will be for a flight with a reasonable seat, snacks and/or a meal, and checked bags will, in 2018, be less than it was (in constant currency) then it was in 1988.

"Cheapest possible fare" today is (in CC) much less then it was of yesteryear and provides higher safety, but much less service.

dulciusexasperis

"Dynamic pricing may be at an airline near you." Where have you been for the last decade+ BlondeBomber? Businesses including airlines have been using Dynamic Pricing for years. What is new is adding an additional factor to the existing Dynamic Pricing. Dynamic Pricing is already at an airline near you.

From your linked article, "And although airlines have already implemented this type of fare — for example, making flights around the holidays more expensive — using new technology, they can tailor fares to specific passengers."

What is new is the 'specific passenger'. That means you specifically. But Dynamic Pricing by airlines might already be called 'old news.' What currently happens under Dynamic Pricing is as the cartoon photo shows. Seats get sold at all kinds of different prices. But those differences are not specific to the 'person' in the seat. Anyone could have got the $29 or $499 seat. Tying the price to J. Doe, 134 First St., Yourtown, who works for company X and flies on average Y times per year; books Premium/Business, etc. means they will just be using one more factor in their Dynamic Pricing algorithm. This already happens in some cases, in regards to what device you use to access the internet. Did you know that in some cases already, accessing via an Apple device costs the customer more than accessing via a non-Apple device? https://www.cnet.com/news/mac-users-...s-says-orbitz/

There is nothing new about Dynamic Pricing, only about just how many factors they are finding to use with it. Airlines don't need to "switch" to Dynamic Pricing, they've been there for years.

dulciusexasperis

I don't know why you would have quoted what you did and then asked about Tango vs. Flex. My comment about not paying the cheapest price was in direct response to a poster who said that I did pay the cheapest price. It had nothing whatsover to do with Tango vs. Flex. It had to do with Economy vs. Premium/Business.

If you must have a comment from me on Tango vs. Flex, here it is. The pros and cons of Tango vs. Flex is a risk vs. reward issue. Who assumes the risk and for what perceived reward. It is not the topic of this thread I started. Start your own thread on it if it is of interest to you.

Suggesting someone is 'delusional' is probably contrary to the forum guidelines/rules rankouraba but I'll put it down to hyperbole on your part rather than an outright intentional insult.

Any business will happily provide a superior product if the market shows that it is willing to pay for that superior product. There is nothing 'delusional' in that statement. What you are suggesting I believe is that the airline would just increase prices and provide the same low quality product it does now in Economy. That is a cynical view of the airline industry which while probably not totally undeserved, is pretty short sighted at the same time. The airlines are simply responding to demand. The people want 'cheap' and are willing to accept 'poor quality' in return. That's where Economy seating has gone, as per the customer's wishes. But if there were sufficient demand for a 'reasonable' Economy experience for which the customers were willing to pay a 'reasonable' price which was higher than current Economy prices while still lower than Premium/Business prices, what possible reason could an airline have for not supplying that product? Answer, none. The problem is that there is no longer sufficient demand for a decent Economy product.

When you suggest the airline would just increase prices without increasing the quality of the product rankouraba, I read that as indicative of how many people perceive the 'airline vs. passenger' issue. They see it as a win/lose and believe the airlines are all out to make them lose. They want to blame the airlines for installing narrower seats with smaller and smaller pitches. For charging for drinks and pillows, etc. They want to accuse them of 'nickel and diming' the passenger to increase profits. They see things only from their side of the coin, never from the other person's side of the coin. They exhibit all the classic indicators of someone who wants the lowest price but with the highest quality in return. It doesn't work that way.

What I want is win/win. Provide me with a product I am happy with and I am willing to pay you a price that allows you to make a fair profit. If someone else is happy with being provided a poorer quality product for a lower price, I have no problem with that just as I have no problem with someone who is willing to pay more for an even higher quality product. Just don't squeeze out that middle ground entirely which is where I fear the airlines are being pushed towards.

RangerNS

If you don't have corporate bean-counters dictating to you an inflexible "lowest fare" policy, you have that option.

Buy a higher fair bucket. Buy preferred seats, buy premium seats, buy a meal on board.

hirohito888

Airlines are already spending their profits on employee bonus, which indirectly should increase quality of service. Airlines will spend money to increase their marginal profits, and that segment is clearly in business class.

As rankourabu noted, the comfort of a Y seat bought at basic fare or Y seat with all the options is still the same. Or what is the difference between Y mainline seat vs. Y Rouge seat that you can't customize and purchase options for. It's one thing to rant, but blaming a group of people who are supporting flights or carriers that would not have otherwise existed doesn't make much sense. Think of all the net benefits this has brought, we now have long-haul LCC (AirAsia X, Scoot, Norwegian, Rouge) and connecting new city pairs (SWF-EDI, SIN-TXL, YUL-OTP) and offering affordable travel. AC is just offering (or reacting to) what the market and consumers want.

I think the product you're looking for no longer exists or it's so niche that airliners would not spend the effort to cater to. Which is surprising given the ton of options airliners have now (from buying miles to preferred seats to lounge access to meet & greet).

dulciusexasperis

Again, basically a 'why don't you just pay for Premium and you'll get what you want' comment. I've already said I am doing that RangerNS. Did you miss where I said so? The real issue is that 'reasonable' is being squeezed out more and more in the race to the bottom. When airlines start talking about 'high density' and 'single cabin' changes, they are not talking about making a plane all Premium. They are talking about making it all Economy. So what then will be your easy answer to the problem?

As I gave in my example of a flight I plan for June, where in the past I could have flown comfortably even in Economy on a non-stop flight on AC mainline, that choice no longer exists. Even when I am willing as I am to pay for Premium seats, that choice no longer exists on AC mainline flights. All that now exists is for me to fly non-stop to Dublin on Premium AC mainline and then change to Aer Lingus to Glasgow. If I were willing to fly on Rouge Club Class, they have only 21 Club Class seats. They are not intending to increase that number, it is far more likely they will remove that number entirely and go to all Economy one day. But even now, in February, they have only 1 of those seats left on the flight date I am looking at. So ignoring the fact that Rouge is an LCC with all the attendant differences that come with any LCC regardless of what seat you book on their plane, even that is not a viable alternative to Dublin and a connecting flight.

What was available in the past is no longer available. Get it? Instead, there are only poorer alternatives. All thanks to the people who have pushed the airlines for cheaper and cheaper airfares.

So my choice is fly mainline with a connection or fly Rouge Club Class non-stop IF I am willing to book many months in advance. That comes down to I have no choice but to fly mainline with a connection. Nothing near what I wanted RangerNS, so, "If you want a seat in the back of yesteryear, you can get it," is in fact not true. I can't get it at all.