Fares or too low? Must be kidding me. Yeah, and it also costs $1 to take a bus from NYC to DC. With wi-fi.

Be very careful what you wish for. Wages haven't gone up for working people in 35 years. The solution is NOT higher fares for a variety of reasons, and they will be selling the rope to hang themselves with by raising fares too high. As Hayek said, there are two areas that one cannot leave to the competitive principle: transport and the environment.

In 1988, I would never have paid $320 rt for transcon. OP must have not planned his/her trip well. I was paying $198 rt. And at that price, one got a meal and three checked bags. One also had many many more airline to choose from. Today we have so few airlines, poor service, and high prices. Price aside, flights should be full. To have empty seats flying is not only economically inefficient it is environmentally unsound. If prices were to increase, then the number of flyers would decrease, and the airlines would rightly reduce the number of planes in the sky. It would not increase the number of airlines flying and thus would have no impact on service.

Here's the thing. Allow me to speak on behalf of...I don't know...99% of the traveling public. @:-)

I want cheap fares.

And on any mature form of transport - car, bus, plane, train, boat, etc. - I want those costs/fares to decrease in real terms over time as technology improves.

Of course, there are parameters:
- I want it done safely, so I'm willing to pay taxes for the infrastructure, standards, and oversight related to roads, rails, airports, ferry terminals, etc.
- I want it done reliably, so I want the labor market for flight attendants, pilots, mechanics, etc. to function efficiently so that the planes and airports are staffed correctly.
- I want the basic services provided by the airline to work properly. Website, kiosks, baggage service, etc.
- I'm willing to accept the 31" coach seat as the basic product for these economic purposes, but I'm also one who may buy up to something better if it's on offer.

The reality is that the airlines go a lot farther beyond these basics - the most obvious example being FFP's that can be extremely rewarding (starting with seats at the pointy end of the plane where this entire discussion does not apply). But at the end of the day, I will always opt for a low fare over something like more crappy airline food.

I notice that some airlines are starting to what I think the OP is suggesting...looking for modest add-ons in between a basic rock-bottom fare and an F fare. Frontier, American, Southwest...maybe others in the U.S. as well? I know United and Delta will also sell extra seat pitch but it appears to be after you book the original itin, based on availability.

Not sure what exactly the complaint is here. Some romantic revision of what flying in the 1970's was like? I'm pretty sure Y seats were still Y seats back then. J/F seats weren't nearly as good as they are now. Airfood still sucked, especially with a healthy side of secondhand smoke. Airlines still lost bags. People always complained about airports.

I do wish that more competitors existed in the market, and maybe they would if more of us were willing to pay more per seat for all sorts of added amenities. (By "more of us" I mean "more of you", of course... ) But if we hold at three viable worldwide alliances plus a healthy stable of regional non-alliance players, I think we're okay. If we dropped to two alliances, then I'd worry a lot more about the two of them horse-trading their way out of markets leaving too little competition.

Have you ever flown Easyjet? In my experience it's very comparable to most legacy carriers and fairly pleasant. Everyone likes to throw around Ryanair as emblematic of Euro cheap fares but it would be like saying JetBlue/Virgin/etc.. is the same as Spirit in the US.

We are fortunate here in South Florida (Miami area) to get some outstanding rates on flights. I recently did a RT from FLL to DCA for $140. It was even $20 less if I had flown into BWI up the road. Someone typically has a fare from FLL or MIA to the West Coast (LAX, SFO, etc.) for under $300. Virgin and American both had some great cross country rates from here.

Another thing to remember is that FFP have signed up with a lot of partners that bring in hard cash and fill in seats that would have gone empty otherwise.

Let's compare flying to say, a train. But, to be fair, let's compare apples to apples - we are going to restrain our train travel to what type of service we get on board a plane in coach class.

So, first of all, we are going to have to do something about seat size and comfort. Typical Amtrak coach seating is 21.5" wide at 41in pitch. Yeah, that is pretty much domestic first! So, we have to decrease the seat size - maybe squeeze in an extra seat across. Also, make thin, hard seats and cram a few more rows in there. You still get a table, but luggage will now have to go under your seat, or a SMALL rollaboard (not what you used to be able to take) with you. Otherwise, pay for it to get stuck in the back and you cant get at it for the whole trip.

No more food. We can have a attendant come around with a softdrink once per trip, maybe a package to peanuts. But, no snack car, you cant decide to get up and get a drink any time you want. And expect to pay high bucks for alcohol.

As for getting up and moving around, that will be limited as well. We will allow you to get up and use the restroom - but not during the 20 minutes after leaving the station or a half hour before getting to the station. And we really will discourage people from wandering about - pretty much stay seated and buckled up unless you HAVE to be up and moving.

Your train of course is not going to go from your origin right to your destination. Those days are long gone - you will have to make a connection somewhere in a hub. And it is not like you can get out and wander around the city while you are there. As a matter of fact, you probably wont be near a city - you will be out in the country where land is cheaper, and you have to find your own transportation to and from the train station.

Your trains will be lighter, as we are going to be much more controlled than we are now. Trains will have set departure and arrival times, they will be smaller to better match route demands (no empty seats these days), and train traffic control will determine exactly when they leave. Of course that is for those who get to travel. Security regulations may prevent some people from even being able to travel by train either because they have secretly been determined to be a enemy of the country, or that their presence on the aircraft might pose a safety risk for other passengers.

The reality is that flying isn't the same as it was back in the 80s. And when you take into account all the compromises we make in order to travel by air, it really isn't the great value you would think it is. So that brings the question up not why is it so cheap, but comparatively, why is it so expensive?

As a country we made a choice to throw all our infrastructure dollars into air travel. This what we are left with. We don't have real competition for air travel to get airlines to improve service. Letting airlines charge a higher fare isn't going to make them give better service, they just make more money. Competition is what makes them provide a better product, but we lost sight of that somewhere.

Not really getting the relevance of the train discussion...

Well, the point was that for all we talk about flying being so great, and how nothing has changed since the 80s... in fact there are an awful lot of concessions passengers and in fact the public in general make towards flying that we simply don't put up with anywhere else. We would never get away with that level of limited movement, those limitations on handicapped access, and operational concessions anywhere else. So to say that train travel is the same product as flying is a bit false, just as comparing flying in the early days after deregulation, or even the period during regulation, to flying nowadays, is not really a fair comparison.

"Not really getting the relevance of the train discussion... "

I think if trains were more prevalent in the East Coast (where
population density is highest) airlines would lose their
cattle class vibe since there would be a healthy, robust alternative.
People should not be flying in jets from Raleigh NC to Washington DC for a
conference. I used to work there (NC) and couldn't believe how
common that was.

*shrug* Two trains a day between Raleigh and Washington... If you're a train aficianado, you can certainly opt for that. The farther up the east coast you get, the more trains you get.

It isn't the price that's the issue, it is de-regulation. When the airlines were regulated, they didn't compete on price so much as service. As airlines began to understand how to compete in the de-regulated market, they realized that the bells and whistles were irrelevant - it was ticket price that determined market share, not just against other airlines, but also in competition with driving (or not traveling, altogether). More belatedly, they realized that they could maintain 'low prices' by creating or increasing non-ticket related prices which many travelers fail to take into account when making air travel-related decisions.

Now I am not suggesting that we revert to the previous way of doing things, but it isn't just the fact that air travel is 'too cheap'.

I disagree that airlines "discovered" that price was the only concern. Yes there were customers who were only price driven, but there are also many who aren't. The problem was that airlines only competed with frivolous, easy to implement improvements, few of which had any real impact on the customer. The real high impact services are seat comfort, entertainment, and airport experience. But airlines focused on the few high revenue customers, and let the product for the large portion of passengers drop to a commodity experience.

That's why I pointed out the rail travel alternative. Airlines easily fell into the trap of offering the same product as everyone else with no difference in the meaningful aspects. If they have to compete against something that offers a better, or at least different, product, then they have no choice but to start looking at their economy product.

But you can get all or most of those with small, inexpensive add-ons to the coach experience. That's a relatively new development.

The big U.S. carriers all have an E+ seat now. Daypasses to lounges now range from cheap to free. Most airlines have a way of selling you a priority access package for a few more bucks.

To me, it appears that they are genuinely trying to serve the rock-bottom leisure traveler and the people willing to pay a little bit more, but not quite what a business traveler would pay for F.

In fact, I even see more and more restricted F/J fares popping up in a range that extends beyond the big corporate buyer and into a range that individuals might consider: J to Europe for $3k R/T, various "-UP" type fares in the U.S. for $100-200 each way over the Y fare, that kind of thing. They still firewall these fares away from corporate buyers with advance-purchase requirements, but they do exist in some markets.

To me, it seems that you have more choices today that you did 15 years ago. Back then, it was still a crappy 32" seat and you had no economically sensible way to buy F without a 30-40% large-corp discount.

The FFP's have gotten worse and more of mainstream America (and the world) is starting to figure them out. And the unbundling of services has been both a blessing and a curse in some ways. But I can't complain too much about the options they offer now to non-F-pax vs. what they offered years ago.

The main option we lost during this time was the option to buy a smoking seat, and I'm pretty happy with "losing" that option!! ^

Agreed, although the baggage (cabin and hold) rules would cause stress amongst North American travellers.