Never thought I would hear someone making that argument. You think we should let more people die in plane crashes so that flying is cheaper?
We already know cheap flying with current safety standards is economically viable, with costs approaching the cost of fuel; see low cost airlines like Ryanair. So the most effective way to lower prices is for airlines to downgrade amenities and services onboard.
This presumes a perfect market where customers are rational actors with access to a variety of sellers whose product differs only on quality, which consumers have access to accurate information about and the time and expertise to precisely evaluate.
Of course the reality is we're just trying to book a flight to get home before Mom's chemo starts and all we know about each airline is the ticket price and how good the peanuts were the last time we flew on them.
Airlines are about the last industry on Earth where we should expect laissez-faire capitalism to produce optimal outcomes.
I suspect lots of people value cheapness when there is no way to tell whether the premium actually reflects quality.
This is for example why flying commercial is such a miserable experience: people will look for the cheapest ticket that gets them to their destination because the whole thing is like being treated like cattle. Why then should you pay a single cent more for the same shitty experience? Airlines that used to offer a slightly better experience have figured this out and also treat you like cattle now so they can also offer the route for a low or lower price.
This is not unique to airlines, and this is my default mode of purchasing things because I’ve been burnt too many times. Unless I know for sure that X brand is much more durable and repairable than another, I’ll always go for the cheapest I can find that meets my needs.
I don't fly enough to care, but the pricing model has become a death of one thousand cuts. I can see why that is bothersome, even if it can be described as fair exchange of value or whatever.
Sure, but part of the point is that it isn't an accident. Airlines are paying attention to what people respond to so instead of going out of their way to compete on quality or whatever other factors, they compete on price.
The point stands. Do they spend more the next time for a chance of having a less miserable experience or do they fly again with the less expensive AwfulAir?
The ecconmics of airplanes is different and do not apply. Here you want enough people paying for the cheap service that it makes money so they don't kill it. There is no advantage to a class of service that doesn't pay for itself in this space, you just move up to the next one.
Actually the worst thing would be most people choosing this as they may decide that the cheaper class isn't worth serving at all.
I wonder what the true market equilibrium between ticket price and not dying would be if the FAA let people find their own balance. If a life is valued at $2,000,000 then people would accept a one in a million chance of dying for $2 off their ticket.
It would be unethical to do so explicitly ("Airline kills poor people"). It could happen automatically due to demand based pricing, but many people don't know the difference and would price the risk at zero. So I think it's "Mostly no."
People don't like to hear this now, but airlines chose the right thing to optimize for. Air travel is rarely that important to have these redundancies, and they vote with their wallets every time they buy economy tickets. Given that safe is a baseline, most people value price over reliability.
If you guarantee me 32'' pitch on all flights, 50lb of check in luggage, ability to change and return any ticket, any time, and good food and wine on every flight in economy, i sign to pay 2x.
After all, we have more or less this in premium economy when you have it on the flight (unfortunately it's on just a few, and business is, too drying up), and it's MORE than 2x more expensive.
What airlines have become is just an insult to the human dignity. No industry should operate that way. If you are concerned with what comparison shopping, price optimized on the Internet, and free competition done to the taxi drivers, turning them into precarious, powerless and poor Uberists, why aren't you concerned with the 'demand side' of the same problem? Much less healthcare. I'd absolutely hate to get any treatment in a system which is 'optimized' in the similar manner.
Dying once every 10 million flight hours instead of every 1000 million flight hours is a fair price to pay for 10 USD of savings.
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