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In the 1930s-1970s air travel was a glamorous experience. You had plenty of leg room, free alcoholic drinks, attractive stewardesses in pleasing uniforms, hassle free boarding experiences, deluxe luxurious accommodations, steak and lobster meals, and comfortable seating.
Since the 80s the industry has consisted of sardine can-like seating, hellish boarding procedures with cavity searches, free peanuts if you're lucky, and frumpy airline staff who look and act like they escaped from a prison chain gang.
It makes me sick.
When did our standards for what is merely a boring, moderately unpleasant experience at times being "hellish"?
I've had good flights and I've had bad flights. Absent one of those rare (and they are rare) stuck-on-the-tarmac-for-eight-hours experiences, nothing is "hellish"?
I was going to say that people have become to whiny about air travel, but I don't think that's it - we just hear their bleating more because of the internet and social media. People have always been whiny.
PS - One thing I would call "hellish" is when an airliners cartwheels across a cornfield or nose-darts onto a freeway or crashes into a river. You know, things that used to happen several times a year but now happen only once or twice a decade in the U.S.?
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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Research the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Fares used to be set by the feds. After the Act, it's been a race to the bottom.
Recreational flyers complain about airlines not providing services, but they will switch carriers for a $5 fare difference in a heartbeat. That means ticket price is everything for those types of travelers, and service doesn't matter. Carriers like WN (Southwest) and others wouldn't have existed pre-deregulation in their current form.
-- The number of air passengers tripled between the 1970s and 2011.
-- In 1974, it was illegal for an airline to charge less than $1,442 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a flight between New York City and Los Angeles. On Kayak, just now, I found one for $278.
Corporations are solely interested in making money. They disregard negatives until they fail, then the guys who got the money just walk away to do it again someplace else. We're just cattle to them.
-- The number of air passengers tripled between the 1970s and 2011.
-- In 1974, it was illegal for an airline to charge less than $1,442 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a flight between New York City and Los Angeles. On Kayak, just now, I found one for $278.
This is the answer and people simply overlook it. The cost for the consumer have fallen dramatically
Corporations are solely interested in making money. They disregard negatives until they fail, then the guys who got the money just walk away to do it again someplace else. We're just cattle to them.
Is there anything in this post that somehow connects to the topi of the thread?
When did our standards for what is merely a boring, moderately unpleasant experience at times being "hellish"?
I've had good flights and I've had bad flights. Absent one of those rare (and they are rare) stuck-on-the-tarmac-for-eight-hours experiences, nothing is "hellish"?
I was going to say that people have become to whiny about air travel, but I don't think that's it - we just hear their bleating more because of the internet and social media. People have always been whiny.
PS - One thing I would call "hellish" is when an airliners cartwheels across a cornfield or nose-darts onto a freeway or crashes into a river. You know, things that used to happen several times a year but now happen only once or twice a decade in the U.S.?
The Airline Industry is extremely competitive and must cut costs at every opportunity. That obsession (especially in the US) has resulted in increasingly poor customer service. That is why the subsidized Middle East or Asian carriers seem much nicer.
Hellish might be strong but it is not too uncommon to wait 2-3 hours to board a 2 hour flight then take another hour to get your luggage and get through your destination airport to ride the train 1 hour (Atlanta) so you have $300 and 6 hours to go to a place that might be a 9 hour drive. Of course that 9 hour drive would be much worse than the 6 hours of airport time so it is all relative.
If people were willing to pay as much money for a flight as back in 1965 (after inflation), they would have quite acceptable service (First class with priority check-in, lounges, priority-boarding, luggage allowance, onboard meals and drinks, comfortable seats (even lie flat suites on AA transcon flagship routes etc.). But most people are not willing to spend $1000 on a transcon flight, so airlines are offering lower services classes.
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