The Enshittification of Flying
The experience keeps getting worse.
For a variety of reasons, mostly because it’s absurdly expensive with a family of seven, I fly a whole lot less than I used to. That the experience continues to get incrementally worse is no surprise. Crammed seats. More and more fees for things that used to be included in the fare.
Today, though, was the first time I encountered (via Expedia) airlines trying to charge for a carry-on bag. Considering how much the fight for overhead space adds to the frustration of boarding, I’d be fine with that, actually, if they allowed the checking of the bag for free. But, no, they charge for the privilege of having luggage, period. Unless you’re a business passenger coming back the same day, you probably need at least some sort of bag that’s too big to fit under the seat.
Now, on the one hand, I get it. Most of us view flying as a commodity good and go for the cheapest flight that meets our basic scheduling needs. Presumably, even those who can afford to fly Business or 1st Class still shop on price when paying their own way. On the other hand, advertising a price and then only revealing that there’s a considerable upcharge for something that’s ordinarily included borders on fraud. At the very least, it’s wildly inconvenient not to know what the price is one the first screen.
I’m not sure why you’d presume that. They have already substituted out of an equivalent service (in terms of transportation to a distant place) that costs only a fraction as much. Clearly, price is nowhere near the top of their list of concerns; why would it suddenly matter more at the margin?
People who buy Porsches and Jaguars do not shop on price; how is this different?
I won’t fly coach across an ocean any more. If I get to pick the carrier, I will never select United — regardless of price differences. What has enshittified is the basic minimum product. It is now cheaper and crappier than ever before — and more affordable than ever before. At least in this case the availability of the cheap low-quality option hasn’t driven the high-quality option entirely out of the market, the way it has with clothing and small appliances.
Hate flying now. The lines, TSA, fighting for overhead space which means you have to make sure you are one of the first onto the plane and the lining up early to get to the front. Flew in to LAX 2 days ago to visit old friend in Palm Springs. Took 30 minutes to get luggage from carousel and another 30-40 minutes to get the rental. I enjoy being places once I am there but I hate the traveling part so much that now that I am retired and can travel its something I keep putting off. (Did I mention the rental car? Absolute POS. Made sounds on on every road from 105 to 111 I have never heard a car make before. Our friend has severe Parkinson’s and the first time he used the handle above the door to assist getting in it broke in 2 pieces and he is underweight.)
Steve
@steve:
I would add to that ‘the one or two passengers on every flight who somehow selfishly manage to diminish the flying sexperiencefor everyone else.’
I fly quite a bit now, at least 3 times a year, one is to Europe, and … since Covid the number of crappy passengers has gone up.
I think what we need is some sort of transparency regulation. Maybe a standardized contract – when you offer a ticket, it must come with XYZ or the price offer must declare otherwise, and in a minimum font size. That kind of thing.
Yes, more regulatory state. The alternative seems to be we waste tons of time researching each airline and what’s included in their “ticket price”.
I think I’ve seen that level of cheapness on some Mexican airlines. (I’m probably flying the equivalent of Spirit, though.) I try to honor my terms and either check a bag (for a fee) and/or use the space under the seat, but I wonder how they really police the overhead bins.
@DrDaveT: I flew Business Class frequently when I lived in Asia and traveled on company business, and I always shopped aggressively on price, even though it was the company’s dime (my budget though, so money spent on travel couldn’t be spent on other things.) The price differences could be astounding. The most I ever paid for a flight was $14.5K round trip, the least for the same flight was $10K less.
I should take a look at the websites of the various US airlines.
Aeromexico, which I do look up for work often, offers fare tiers which spell out what the fare includes. It’s far more complicated than it used to be not even a few years ago.
BTW, some ultra-low cost* airlines in Europe charge for printing a boarding pass at the airport. Some in the US charge a fee for paying with a credit card. I would say “it’s getting out of hand,” but that ship has sailed and gone around the world three times.
Also, premium class isn’t exempt. The issues there are mostly related to the frequent flyer programs, as well as the credit card rewards programs. I don’t know much about them, but every few weeks the aviation blogs mention this or that program has been devalued or made worse in some way.
*Low cost = high fees
Ultra-low cost = ultra-high fees
Either way, more fees than most people imagine.
@Jay L Gischer:
I agree the advertised price should include all fees. but also all taxes, airport fees, federal excise fees, etc.
Especially for lower fares, you may wind up paying three times as much in fees as on fare.
And the same goes for hotels, which charge sales taxes, hotel taxes, resort fees, destination fees, etc.
The blame for this, such as it is, lies predominantly with us, the flying public. People routinely pick the cheapest flight available, even if it’s only ten dollars difference. We endlessly complain about the inconveniences, but will not spend a dollar more when it comes to getting better service or seating.
I’ve flown Southwest since they first came to Midway Airport, conveniently located just five miles from my Chicago based family. It’s odd that they started out with a reputation as a cattle-car airline and now offer one of the more pleasant experiences, yet haven’t really changed their service in the interim.
@DrDaveT: @MarkedMan:
Like @MarkedMan, I fly business and you’d better believe I watch the price. I don’t fly First because Business gives me 90% of First, often for half the price.
I also buy fine German machines and watch the price. Not to say I’m a great bargain hunter, but what I wanted was a gorgeous Mercedes S63 AMG Cabriolet – and yes, I could have afforded it – but I am quite happy with my E class Cabriolet which costs just about a third as much.
It’s the Sofitel principle. Sofitel gives you about 90% of what you get at a Four Seasons or Peninsula, but generally about half the price. (Although there is somewhat less ass-kissing.)
@DrDaveT: “Clearly, price is nowhere near the top of their list of concerns; why would it suddenly matter more at the margin?”
It certainly matters to me. I have to fly across the country several times a year, and I much prefer to do it in business class. When I can snag a round trip for under two grand, I’ll do it, even though that often means a lot of flights at inconvenient times of the day (or night). But the same trip can easily cost three or even four thousand, and there’s simply no way I would do that.
Why would you assume that people who are willing to spend a certain amount of money on a luxury good are also willing to spend any amount for the same good?
If it hasn’t been mentioned yet, Frontier Airlines offers you the chance to talk to a check-in agent. For $20.
3M used to have a policy that any international travel was to be done using Business class. It was LOVELY. I hopped enough between countries that I really appreciated the extra comfort.
(Now if I could get them to stop scheduling me to be on opposite sides of the Pacific the same day, sigh…)
@Kathy: @Jay L Gischer: President Biden is, in fact, working to cut out some of what he calls “junk fees” –including the sort of thing I’m complaining about here, which is called “drip pricing.” I mostly support this, although the devil is in the details.
@MarkedMan: Yes but. I’ve been writing about this phenomenon for at least a decade now and, as I noted in 2014, it’s simply next to impossible for the casual flying public to compare apples to apples.
The last two times I flew, I used Southwest because I had a gift card to use up. This time, I used Expedia and it was a bigger pain in the ass than I remember to find a decent rate because of the weird hurdles—only some of which are visible on the main page. I wound up going to the Delta and Southwest sites to compare prices and booked Southwest because it was about 25 percent cheaper for comparable flights.
We fly internationally at least a couple of times a year. Unless the rates are absolutely insane (this usually only happens when we decide there’s a narrow window to travel and we’re buying tickets less than a month ahead of time), we always buy *at least* the “economy-plus” class of tickets. And, we always check the business class fares–we’ve found some incredible deals that way (the biggest “score” to date was business class RT from BOS-LHR for only $100 more per person than economy).
I’m sure buying tickets for seven people is eye-watering.
We definitely have a few things operating in our favor: no kids, so we can travel during off seasons/shoulder seasons, and we aren’t shooting for the lowest possible cost ticket, instead, we look for the best ticket class we can justify/afford for the trip. (I care less about comfort on the short flight between MHT-DCA than I do overseas, for example.)
ETA: in the “purchasing things that make your trip better” category, my husband and I both went through the process to get Global Entry. LOVE IT. We get to go through the very very very short line when we get home from overseas. 100% worth every penny we paid.
@wr:
That’s not what I said — or at least not what I was trying to say. I was trying to say that people who have already chosen quality over price for the main decision are not going to suddenly prioritize price over quality at the margin. If it’s really the same good, of course they will pick the cheaper one. My point about United was that, often, it isn’t the same good at all.
@Grumpy realist:
My company will spring for business class on an international flight of 14 hours or more. Anything shorter, upgrades are a la carte.
@Jen: I’ll second what Jen says. Always worth a peek at the business class fares. On some Asia to Asia fares, we got business class a little cheaper than economy! Why? We don’t know for sure but economy was stuffed full to the gills and business was half empty.
On the other hand. I mentioned in the Forum I was up early to take people to the airport. Tampa-Detroit – $39.
The reason they want to charge for carry on is that a lot of people like me have caught on to the fact that 9 out 10 times, they are looking for people to check their bags to save on overhead space. For free. If I have a connection, I’ll grab that offer every time.
Another hint is to look at a flight and see if it codeshares with another airline. Especially on overseas trips. My son got good bargains using a Spanish airline flight instead of the US codeshare flight. Same flight, different prices.
I once got kind of short with a flight attendant (which I immediately regretted because I hate to beat up on people who have no control over a situation) when she was exhorting the passengers to hurry up and stuff their gear in the overheads so they could make their gate pushoff times. Snarkily suggested that it is the airlines fault since they incentivize passengers to carry as much on board as possible.
@MarkedMan:
Southwest is in a place where their model was low-cost, but changes have rendered it more akin to full service airlines. Sam thing happened to Interjet.
JetBlue resisted checked bag fees for a while, but eventually caved. I keep expecting Southwest to eventually succumb, but it’s been a while.
There was a period when many in the aviation blogs not only defended, but celebrated the many fees as they piled on. their rationale was that one ought to pay only for what one wanted, rather than a flat all-inclusive fare.
The problem with this reasoning, is that fares didn’t go down as fees piled on. I always saw it as nickel-and-dimeing passengers to get additional revenue. Fares are still priced by supply and demand.
I’ve proposed a reverse fee system. It might go like this:
Fare includes everything: carry on, seat selection, unlimited changes, checked bags, a meal, WiFi, and all else. If you don’t want a meal, say, or seat selection, or checked bags, you can take them off and get a discount.
How much would a checked bag be priced at then? One billionth of a penny? Less?
@James Joyner:
Not really.
It only runs in to the Jason Mendoza Principle.
The simple method is too look at an aggregator, like Expedia, to see a bunch of options. then go to each of the airlines you saw, and price each trip, trip portion, etc. Mix and match airlines as needed, if possible. Minimize or maximize connections.
the full method is a bit more involved.
And this brings us to the Jason Mendoza Principle: who the f***ng Hell has time to waste on this bulls**t?
Speaking of the degradation of frequent flyer programs, I live in the northeastern US and last year I flew to California, Tokyo, Brazil twice, Ecuador, and a few other trips like RDU and Omaha. Didn’t crack the first elite tier on American. They use some kind of multipliers (which I think can even be zero) for your mileage earning now. And 30000 miles I earned for those trips surely won’t be redeemable for any kind of useful ticket. It’s hard to see what the point is.
My wife and I flew last month for the first time since Covid, on a low cost Canadian airline. Like low enough that they don’t pay full gate fees in Toronto, so they have to use a terminal that has been closed for years and have passengers shuttled from the real terminal. We paid a bit extra for the extra legroom and all in all were happy with the flight. First time I ever remember arriving at a destination early.
@Kathy: I don’t travel often and am not usually impacted by “fees” given that I’m flying internationally at a “full-service” fare, but when I go to Expedia or Travelocity, the most important piece of information in the flight details (yes, I always look at those) is a line that says service provided by and then the name of the airline. My last trip to Korea this fall, I was really sad that there was no other flight available than a 6 am departure on United* (my least favorite carrier for many years). This time, I noted that service was being provided by Korean Air. That’s completely different. It’s not like flying United at all.
*The next departure was at a nicer time, but was also $275 more. I dislike United, but not almost $300 worth. Even worse it was a Korean Air flight service provided by United. Hard pass!
I’m flying to New York on my birthday to go to a rave*. The plan is to fly out Friday morning, rave Friday night/Saturday morning, return home saturday afternoon. My initial search came up with tickets costing roughly $500 at what I guess are off peak times. My partner ended up finding me two flights that brought the total down to about $250 (my birthday present). This was one of the few times I would have been willing to go solely on price. I couldn’t do it cause outside of legal research, my research skills suck. I wish we could collectively get our shit together and say that we as a society say this is the minimum amount of service, regardless of the price, this is the minimum and then make the airlines deal. Southwest seems to have figured out a decent service and a generally decent price. I mostly like flying them cause I know what I’m going to get and it’s aggressively decent. As it is now, I’m flying out of Midway and coming back into O’Hare. That’s the worst part of this for me.
*for your amusement, this is who I’m going to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fC11NuARvA It’s an all night rave. Which means she’s the only dj and she’s playing that style of music from 10pm to 5am. I am STOKED. It’s going to be an awesome 27th-ish birthday.
@Kathy:
Oh, also, I thought the Jason Mendoza principal involved Molotov Cocktails?
@DMA:
The point is incentivizing you to fly on their airline. That the incentive is not usable for you is of little consequence to them.
@Beth: I don’t know whether she still does or not, but for years my ex-wife celebrated the Xth (approximately) anniversary of her 21st birthday.
@Beth:
One time I had to stay an extra day in Monterrey, and Interjet was booked solid for that day. I had two strokes of good fortune. One, they still flew to Toluca and had seats available. Two, I had not driven myself to the airport that time. I forget why not, as usually that’s the best option for day trips.
@Beth:
Do you need some for the rave?
@DMA:
It’s not my area of expertise, but odd reading here and there in aviation and travel blogs, leads me to surmise that you also need credit cards that award points which can be used for airline frequent flyer programs. I gather several cards, either affiliated with one airline, or which can transfer points for miles to different airlines.
Than it gets complicated. Points/miles from one airline can be used in others within one of the commercial alliances (One World, Star Alliance, etc.), in code shares, turned to hotel rewards points, and a lot more.
Since I don’t spend that kind of money or fly that much, I’ve never gotten interested. I’m concerned, too, one can get tripped into overspending on credit card purchases to gain points and status, and wind up with terrible debts.
The point is money. Airlines make a lot of it selling miles to credit card companies and other awards partners. I’ve been meaning to share a link about it for a few weeks now.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
On of my favorite things is when my kids ask my partner, “Why is Tall Mom 27 again?”
@Kathy:
I don’t think I could fit them in my underpants to smuggle in. I do wonder if the place in NYC has indoor fire cannons. Those are super verboten in Chicago. Burn the city down once than then everyone get’s twitch about fire.
@Kathy: There was a sea change in frequent flier programs when the affiliated credit cards became a thing. For a couple of years I was at a United frequent traveler level that wasn’t even listed on the web site. (World something? Global something? I don’t remember at the moment. ) It was nice. Like, there were airports where we had our own special checkin gate that was in its own room. Once I had a tight connection at Dulles and as I was about to exit the plane there was a woman at the door with a sign with my name on it. I honestly thought someone had died. Instead she took me down the little jetway stairway that they usually bring the checked carryons up, put me in a Mercedes Benz and drove me to my connection. I didn’t even know that could be done! The next year I noticed my new card just had Platinum level or whatever their top tier is, and since I had been traveling just as much as before I thought it was worth a call. The nice lady explained that the plan had shifted and it was no longer just miles but also included the amount you spent with the airlines. She didn’t say it directly but left me with the impression that affiliated credit card charges would be factored in. Within five years everyone at the gate had an affiliated card and therefore “priority boarding”. (A year after that I was only traveling a few times a year and didn’t qualify for anything on any airlines, but felt the trade off was well worth it. )
@MarkedMan:
Global Services.
Being driven to one’s flight is more of a European thing as a routine courtesy for first class passengers, and only at some airports. Air France does it at Charles de Gaulle. Lufthansa at Frankfurt, but only out of the first class terminal. Maybe some of the Big 3 Gulf airlines do something similar, though I think their specialty is chauffeur service to and from the airport.
@Beth:
Happy birthday. When (not if) I go to hell it’ll be a lot like a rave. I might just be able to tough out ten minutes, then I would flee.
@MarkedMan: When I got a United affiliate card, the Group 2 boarding was a great perk, because almost nobody had it. I got to board right after first class! There was always overhead bin space for me!
Of course it couldn’t last, because now a lot of people have the card, and Group 2 has 50 people in it. So now the first guy in Group 2 is the guy who gets into the boarding lane 30 minutes before boarding and just stands there, which spurs the rest of us to do the same thing.
But if you upgrade to the $525 a year card, you board with first class…
Great book on this subject is Why Flying is Miserable by Ganesh Sitaraman, a law prof at Vanderbilt.
The 20,000-foot summary of this experience is: Reducing regulation and trusting companies to magically Innovate And Create Benefits For Customers always results in…. collusion of the few remaining companies in any business and reduction of quality for customers.
Wait until airlines implement AI right across the board and there will be no living being who can provide even the minimal help there is now. You’ll look back on these days as near-Edenic.
I don’t fly anymore – yeah, retirement! – but we’ll have to go to Ireland this summer for my son’s wedding. Seriously thinking of taking an ocean liner. My youngest son made a joke about it but like my wife told me last month, it’s not a bad idea since I don’t have time constraints pertaining to work.
@Not the IT Dept.: I have a feeling that airlines are going to be far more cautious about fully deploying AI, given the fact that humans can outsmart the AI and the airlines will apparently be held to what the chatbots offer:
Paying for carryons is nothing new – at least to me.
I’m near Denver, and Frontier is the pay-extra-for-everything airline. Once you price out the extras, the total ticket price is about the same as an equivalent apples-to-apples flight on United, AA, Southwest, or one of the other majors. This is more like a la carte pricing than enshittification IMO.
A couple of weeks ago, my brother and his partner were in Minneapolis for a week on business. I got a $79 round trip on Frontier and paid another $40 to pick my seats for $120. It was only a couple of days, so I could fit everything in the “free” carry-on size.
My family of five is going to Europe for three weeks this summer. We are mostly traveling light with only non-chargeable carry-on bags (the ones that can fit under a seat) and one single piece of checked luggage. European airlines are doing the same thing.
As I always say, life and everything is about tradeoffs.