This is pretty funny. It's like a case study in the armchair expert. Here's a person who is not a travel industry veteran, but was curious about something, so they just started googling facts and figures, tried to find a trend, then looked for evidence to back up the trend they were looking for, then googled for "explanations" (read: news articles from mainstream media) to justify the trends they were looking for. At no time did they actually talk to somebody in the travel industry. Just a lot of googling, vague questions, and hand-wavey answers.
The weirdest part is how subjective the question is. It's like saying, is life getting worse? It turns out there's more than a few ways of looking at that. Air travel is cheap and widely available, despite coming out of a global pandemic, not to mention the global recession before that, among other minor blips. Oh, but you were delayed in getting in your magic metal tube that hurtles through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, letting you sip beer and watch movies in your PJs while traveling thousands of miles in a few hours, arriving safer than any other form of transportation? Man, that's terrible.
With air travel, and most kinds of tourism, and customer service, and actually with most commodified experiences, the affordability and mass availability is the thing that makes the experience subjectively worse. It's the other people. Farting. Coughing. When you treat people like animals, they act like animals. At the same time, when they act like animals, why not treat them as such?
Objectively and societally it may be better that more people have access to something, but by definition more people doing something makes it a shittier experience. No metrics or other dimensions necessary.
Not necessarily. It isn't the amount of people that is causing your discomfort -- the airline is always going to optimize for a full plane (and environmentally, we should want them to). It is the fact that we have been taught to tolerate people when they are being obnoxious and discourteous. If the airlines just ejected people who were being an asshole and fellow travelers would call out and shame bad behavior, it might lead to a more pleasant experience.
This doesn’t explain why the flexible compartment in front of me, on the back of the seats, is either less usable than 10 years ago (ie too inflexible), or doesn’t exist at all on some flights (Hello, Ryanair).
It might sound funny in a juvenile way, but it just takes the uncontrolled flatulence of one impolite passenger to make the flight experience miserable for all the others.
I was recently on a long-ish flight of a few hours and there was a passenger, whom I could not locate, who every 15 minutes or so was freeing themselves of some poison.
The misery of the experience is difficult to describe, but I am sure that many will have felt something similar.
All it takes is one rude bully to turn what should be a miraculous experience, like flying ought to be, into a depressing one. Many parallels can be drawn.
The problem with air travel is it is too fast. Or at least it is presented as fast. This implies if something is unpleasant, it shouldn't be a big deal because you shouldn't be exposed to it for long.
Why does he need to talk to someone in the travel industry to evaluate the experience of traveling? Yes, we all agree with Louis CK that just being able to fly is a marvel. But it still sucks and it has gotten worse.
Amd yet their conclusion at the start seems to nail it?
They say it's worse in terms of delays, cheaper, and safer. This all seems to be perfectly correct.
Rambling about for travel follows ...
I remember back in the 90s when a domestic flight was a major luxury for an upper middle class family. Now just about anyone with disposable income can afford it.
An economy ticket in the 90s was (roughly IIRC) equivalent to business class today in terms of service and first class in terms of price.
Yes, it's a lot cheaper. IMO if someone wants to experience 90s style travel they could upgrade to business or first class but there's a reason why most people don't.
Airlines have also gotten better at saving money on things that won't chase customers away. Delays are always a possibility so just having a better record on delays won't win many customers because they still need to manage the risk of delay. See also meals, seats, and every other thing people hate about air travel - there's always been unpleasant things about air travel, and making them a bit worse and a lot cheaper will win a lot more customers than it loses.
I remember flying coast to coast in the US in the 90s cheaper than I can get tickets today, but that's not accounting for inflation, so probably not really cheaper.
> Here's a person who is not a travel industry veteran, but was curious about something
> At no time did they actually talk to somebody in the travel industry.
Ignoring what conclusions they landed on, I'd like to defend this approach.
For a controversial subject, first party expertise or second party direct testimonials will have less weight than actual data and tangible trends.
We're having exceptional access to data, and I personally wish more people would go look for a topic they care about, gather facts and expose their conclusion.
An example of it is Sarah Marshall's essays on Tonya Harding [0] with 0 access, only interviews, police reports and news papers of the time. IMHO it's not competiting with expert analysis or new reporting, and bring a different kind of insight to the table.
I agree with your broader point. But I used to get a free beer on British Airways flights and no longer do. It's been many years since I flew on a plane with even a compartment for my stuff in front of me let alone a screen. Admittedly I fly less than I used to but that's at least partly because the relative experience vs cost of trains has got better and I have no reason to fly across the ocean.
As if talking to travel industry experts is a sure way to quantify the subjective experience travelers? Sorry, I prefer the perspective of people and data that depend upon the travel industry indirectly, not as their cash cow.
With the way they pack people into airplanes like sardines, most of the reason for why "air travel sucks" today is that too many others are doing it!
It used to be FAR more common to get onto airplanes that were partially or even nearly totally empty. The extreme increase in efficiency/total flights combined with privatization means that every tom dick and harry is now flying/being a shitty tourist. I would nationalize all airline industries and I would have done it yesterday primarily because tom and dick should not be flying!
Americans have too much money. Too many low quality Americans (i.e the kind who cause negative stereotypes of Americans abroad) are now traveling who should have stayed home permanently.
Gate keeping is good and the "let people enjoy things" crowd is responsible for why a lot of stuff is now declining in this world.
Tourism is only fun when it's being done in small amounts. The locals of the "tourist dependent localities" certainly agree (and are often willing to take significant economic pain for the benefits of reducing the tourist load). Why not give them what they want for once???
I wonder how much of the increased schedule times are due to baggage fees? Here is my theory:
In 2008, airlines began charging for checked bags[1]. This was done both for the immediate revenue increase, and also to prod flyers into airline loyalty programs or airline credit cards to get a free checked bag. However, that caused a lot of casual fliers to go carryon-only. That, in turn, causes it to take longer to board/exit planes, leading to longer turn around times.
I've long contended that airlines should get rid of checked bag fees. And if they feel like they really want to be evil, switch the fees to carryons. That would decrease the number of carryons and decrease the turnaround time.
EDIT: From the article "Starting around 2008, Scheduled flight times began increasing even faster than actual ones"
This has me convinced that the bag fees really torpedoed turnaround times.
Carry on policy has triggered an arms race for passengers and carry on size. I usually just bring a small backpack because it’s convenient and I don’t want to lug two bags through the airport.
Recently, certain airlines have announced that small bags must go under seats so there’s room in overhead storage for roller bags. There goes my leg room and any incentive to pack smaller with just one small backpack.
Now, I’m incentivized to bring the maximum size carry on so that I get overhead space and don’t have to shove smaller bags next to my feet.
Almost 45 years after my first flight, I still carry a backpack. The same one in fact, though its waterproofing is long gone.
More often than not, I get to stash it in the overhead bin. There's often space for something like 3-1/2 rollers in a bin, so I can squeeze my bag in. The option of putting it under my seat is something I save for strict necessity, but it's still preferable to gate-checking.
Airlines should get more strict with regards to the overhead bin. Both with bag size and placement. Planes can probably fit a certain sized bag for everyone who brings one, but too many flyers seem to intentionally bring bigger bags or place them oddly so as not to share the space.
A bullet train holds 2x to 4x the passengers and loads in 2-5 minutes. I get they are very different. Those 2x to 4x passgeners load into 16 cars (so 16 doors). The baggage does not have to be stowed before take off nor do any cargo holds need to be loaded. The aisles are wider. Etc.
Still, as an example of the best possible case, it does make me wonder how much more efficient loading a plane could be. I can imagine some magic way to use all of the doors, even if in the short term it means walking on the tarmac to one of 4-6 stair cases.
Maybe it doesn't matter. I wonder if anyone has calculated if such a system would save (or lose) money.
I'm a _somewhat_ frequent flyer (5-8 trips a year). I've never experienced a plane being delayed by the time it take passengers to enter/exit the plane. I have, however, experienced delays because the baggage handlers are still loading the plane.
For that reason, I've never understood the obsession with loading the plane quickly.
I don't think the claim is that boarding causes flights to depart later than scheduled. Of course they plan for the time it takes to board. The claim is that, despite being predictable, it significantly increases the turn-around time for airplanes.
If they’re not done loading the plane, they don’t have to make an announcement about it because it’s self evident, whereas if everyone is sitting down and ready to go, they will let everyone know what the holdup is.
Just yesterday I took a flight where they asked everyone to try to hurry up loading so they could get the plane off the ground sooner.
I've often have the opposite experience. I fly a LOT (4+ times per month) and I hear the bag doors close and watch the handlers drive their ramp away while people are still staggering on-board more than 1/2 the time.
My theory is that the increased turnaround times are due to the fact that people are too stupid to board a plane properly. And Airline staff is doing less about it than, say, 10 years ago, probably being afraid of social media shitstorms or whatever.
I'm a frequent flyer, and the sheer carelessness of how people waste the time of everyone behind them in the boarding queue still surprises me. As if in the moment they reach their aisle they immediately forget they, too, were waiting...
I do not remember things to be so bad 20 years ago, and even 10 years ago. Some airline staff was quite active in herding the cattle back then, but also the cattle maybe was not as ignorant as today.
But maybe I am just becoming an old, grumpy man, and nothing has really changed. Who knows.
A lot of pathology in air travel is related to the fact that people use aggregate search engines to find flights and sort by price. The lowest up-front base fare tends to win. So that encourages airlines to nickel and dime later, such as by charging for bags and a million other things, making the whole experience worse.
If the whole price had to be flat and bundled into the ticket the experience would be better.
It's also an industry that competes on price, and that tends toward a spiral to the bottom in quality. They aren't allowed to skimp too much on safety stuff, and if they did it'd cost more in the long run, but they are incentivized to make seats tiny and uncomfortable and nickel and dime.
I agree 100% and when I encounter people that don't believe this theory I point out that, once upon a time, Southwest Airlines used to be able to turn an entire 737 in 10 minutes.
I agree, but it's worth noting that those 10 minute turns were probably -100 or -200 series aircraft with a capacity of about 100 passengers, while a modern Max-8/9/10 aircraft holds about 200 (who still board through a single door).
For those not familiar with Southwest Airlines, they famously offered two free checked bags for years after all other major carriers started charging for them. Sadly, they ended that practice earlier this year.
The article itself shows why scheduled times grew: so that airlines could report a very high percentage of on-time flights, which have regulatory and marketing advantages that they did not before.
Passengers preferred carry-on long before fees because checked bags take longer or get lost. I’m not aware of any data showing per-passenger load / unload times have increased.
Per-plane load / unload times have definitely increased, because the average passenger count per flight has increased. Bigger planes + fewer empty seats.
A very high percentage of on-time flights is an actual good thing and not just a reporting trick, even if all you have to change to achieve it is the reporting.
Honestly I'd love to check bags more often, but it's too frequently an inordinately slow and risky proposition.
I get free checked bags through my preferred airline's credit card, but still almost never do it because it adds so much time and frustration. The number of times I've had to wait an additional hour+ at baggage claim is ridiculous. And I've had bags lost/misrouted a stupid percentage of the time considering how infrequently I check bags. Fortunately never lost for good, but getting your bags days after you arrive is not great.
Even airlines like Alaska that have their "20 minute guarantee" often exceed it but get away with it because to make a claim you have to wait in line at the understaffed baggage office, wasting even more time after late bags. Get real.
If airlines/airports want to incentivize checking bags they need to do more than just make it free, but make it fast and reliable, too.
> And if they feel like they really want to be evil, switch the fees to carryons.
They have decided to be evil.
All low costs companies in Europe have been charging for carry ons since the end of Covid. You are only allowed a backpack which has to fit under the sit in front of you for free and adding carry ons is quite expensive, can be nearly as much as the ticket.
Classic airlines have started weighting carry ons before boarding too so it’s only a matter of time before they charge.
For a normal traveler and unless you do a very short trip, prices have actually significantly increased in the past few years.
United already charges for carryons (the basic-economy fare only includes items small enough to fit under the seat), and if you bring one they charge you more than the checked bag fee to gate-check it.
I also experienced recently that gate agents will lie about this to decrease turn around time if a plane is running late. We were forced to gate check ours after being told the plane was too full to hold all, only to get onboard and find ample space. When we asked the flight attendant, they apologized and said they did not tell them to do this, but it’s unfortunately common at airports with frequent delays. So charge ridiculous bag fees, forcing everyone to carry on, which delays boarding, so they lie to you and check your bag for free (which maybe you would’ve done to begin with if that was an option), only to board a plane and feel duped. All around great experience!
> I've long contended that airlines should get rid of checked bag fees.
I agree, but I think another big incentive for people to bring carryons is how the airlines deal with checked baggage. All too often you have to wait forever to collect your bags, or your bag gets damaged, or your bag gets lost (usually not permanently).
With checked bag fees, the airlines took one of the worst aspects of their own service and started charging more for it. And they wonder why nobody wants to check a bag.
If airlines took checked bags seriously I'd check bags more often -- even if I had to pay to check them.
The budget carriers in Europe (RyanAir, EasyJet, etc) all have fees for carry on bags that are almost as high as checked bags and they only even offer those fees to people who have purchased the “up front” premium seats.
They board and deboard planes insanely quickly. Just about the only good thing about those airlines is that they are super dedicated to on-time operations and not wasting time. They can’t afford to waste any time when they’re offering $25 international flights.
Of course, not having 9 boarding groups of various status levels helps a lot too.
How would they charge for carryons though? Would they charge for say a bag of food you just bought? Also they'd have to put in infrastructure for charging right at the gate, and I'd imagine that would further slow things down, require more staff etc. Just don't think either thing will happen, since clearly they care a lot more about making money than passenger convenience.
Ryanair already does this in the UK and Frontier does it in the US, so clearly someone has figured out the logistics of it. Both are ultra-low cost carriers (in the same model as Southwest used to be).
As for payments slowing down boarding: I expect that it does, but the price info I see online suggests that the carryon fees are punitive (more than checked baggage, and with a 100% surcharge for paying at the gate). In other words, the purpose of the fee is more about discouraging people from bringing a carryon in the first place than the revenue it generates.
Frontier doesn't seem to be shy about reminding customers about the gate pay surcharge, either.
For the record, As a carry-on lover and cheapskate, I viscerally dislike this idea. But your logistical objections don't ring true to me.
> How would they charge for carryons though? Would they charge for say a bag of food you just bought?
Simple. Charge for the right to put a suitcase in the overhead bins. If it can fit under the seat in front of you, in the seat pocket, or if you can wear it, then no problem.
> Also they'd have to put in infrastructure for charging right at the gate
The flight attendants already have the ability to say "sorry, you need to check that" if the bins are full or if an item is too big, and then get the item where it needs to go. They already have the ability to charge your card with a handheld reader if you want to order special food items. I'm failing to see the obstacle here.
Spirit already does this. You need a special ticket to be allowed to carry on more than a personal item. I've seen people stopped and forced to pay an exorbitant punishment fee to take on a bag when they hadn't purchased a carry on in advance.
The budget airlines have all started getting very strict with carry ons. If your ticket has not paid for the larger carry on size they make you put your bag in the sizing basket and dont let you on if it doesnt fit. There is also a smaller basket for the personal item so you cant just bring a ton of food bags.
They already have the "infrastructure" to prevent one person from bringing on two carry-ons or a carry-on that exceeds the size requirements. I'm not sure what new thing you're imagining they would need.
you're currently allowed a carry-on and a "personal item" like a purse or a small backpack. the carry-on can be stowed, but the personal item has to stay with you in the seat.
getting rid of the carry-on doesn't mean no personal item, it just means you aren't allowed any space in the overhead bin.
Anecdotally, Southwest flights now take much longer to board because of the stupid checked luggage fee they just introduced.
I’d pay $60 more per flight just to not have to deal with other people screwing with giant carry on bags, and the repeated announcements that there’s no room in the overhead compartments.
As a bonus, they also set the sizes for checked luggage slightly below industry standards. Good luck finding something close to but below their linear inch limit. I figured this out because instead of checking three small bags, the family now checks one that’s right up to the weight + size limit.
They used to be the best domestic airline (due to enshittification with all the other carriers), and also one of the cheapest. They could have just raised ticket prices by $50 on average and still have been one of the cheapest.
Instead of realizing they were the premium choice, they’re racing to become one of the worst airlines. They even recently announced they’re going to charge extra for legroom early next year.
I wonder how much it will cost them to move the seats around so some of them have inadequate legroom, and how many rows that’ll add.
Anyway, yes, flights have gotten much worse in the last ten years.
> I’d pay $60 more per flight just to not have to deal with other people screwing with giant carry on bags, and the repeated announcements that there’s no room in the overhead compartments.
It’s been awhile since I’ve boarded less than Group 4 on Delta. But I don’t remember it being that bad even with group 5 - Silver medallion, credit card holders and economy travel.
Airlines have either lost my checked bag or just stolen from it too many times for me to trust them with my possessions again. Maybe if I was transporting horse manure, or unpackaged glitter.
Maybe in aggregate flights have fewer delays but every single flight I’ve taken this year has been delayed (on top of the padded flight times the article mentions). I’ve flown about half a dozen trips.
I also hate the argument that the free market should solve the pricing problem. Airlines have exclusivity on airport gates. Any frequent flier on the SFO -> EWR route knows that if you want to save money you can book an Alaska flight instead of United but Alaska has significantly fewer gates and usually gets delayed when arriving waiting for one. Flights aren’t exactly equal commodities and even if the airlines were well-run, contracts for these gates are locked in.
Pricing stats here also fail to account for business class vs economy pricing. Business class prices on tickets have skyrocketed, way outstripping purported CPI. In some cases prices have doubled or more since COVID.
Perhaps the free market is solving the pricing/timeliness problem, but your fellow travelers value lower prices more than being on time?
> Business class prices on
> tickets have skyrocketed
The people with more disposable income who are subsidizing air travel for the rest of us are giving us an even larger subsidy these days? I feel just terrible about that.
It’s not that simple. Business is representing an ever increasing % of travellers, so airlines are increasing the % of business class seating, leaving fewer seats for economy seating and therefore less availability in economy, so you might not even end up seeing the savings in your flight ticket since more economy passengers are competing with each other.
Business class tickets are bought by companies not people. You pay for that "subsidy" through more expensive products to pay for that exec's stupid flight to a symposium where they all talk about how great they are and how important their ideas are.
> Pricing stats here also fail to account for business class vs economy pricing. Business class prices on tickets have skyrocketed, way outstripping purported CPI. In some cases prices have doubled or more since COVID.
Sure, but business class is still 100% full (and frequent fliers complain that they aren't getting upgrades, so it seems to be mostly paid).
This is like when companies complain that they can't find any good devs, but don't want to pay market rate.
> I also hate the argument that the free market should solve the pricing problem.
It's odd that in his rush to point the finger at the government monopoly, he seems to have missed that a free market where customers select flights mostly on price naturally tends towards airlines operating lower cruise speeds for better operating economy, and not allowing loads of wiggle room in their schedules to make up for delays.
The idea that actually the real reason why aircraft are operating more slowly and delayed more is because there aren't enough ATCs in position doesn't pass the sniff test at all for anyone that knows the slightest thing about commercial aviation
> The idea that actually the real reason why aircraft are operating more slowly and delayed more is because there aren't enough ATCs in position doesn't pass the sniff test at all for anyone that knows the slightest thing about commercial aviation
Well... I mean, objectively, there are not enough ATCs. Staff are being scheduled 6 days a week. Towers at small airports are operating on reduced hours because there aren't enough people, and towers are some airports are being operated with less than full staff (so each person is working multiple tasks).
Whether or not the very real staff shortage is what is causing the delays is not 100% clear. My intuition is that it is, but I don't have any actual data to support that.
Lower speeds to save on fuel as closing on sound barrier has somewhat sharp increase in air resistance.
Also I think in general increasing utilization of aeroplanes increases revenues and thus makes things more profitable as money is not made while not flying. Easiest way to achieve this is to remove slack like shortening turnover times. Which then results in cascading delays as planes simply are not available at times.
Why does Alaska schedule more flights than they have gate slots? Or is it just that anything that delays gate availability is going to impact them first?
May also happens to be the month construction began on one of EWR’s two commonly used runways (though they do have a smaller third runway). This severely reduced the amount of traffic the airport could handle and EWR attempted to keep operating the same amount of scheduled flights as usual, it was a real mess.
How have we not solved the issue of getting everyones baggage off the plane in a timely manner. We've been using these conveyor belt-carousels for over 50 years and the same process for loading and unloading, but people shouldnt have to plan on waiting 45+ minutes after they deplane for their personal belongings in 2025. Lost luggage? The whole system seems archaic to me.
If you think about the complexity of routing bags from a single plane on to potentially dozens of connecting flights and onto the non-connecting carousel, it's actually amazing that the process is not screwed up more frequently.
Alaska guarantees bags within 20m of landing. It’s not impossible, most airlines just don’t give a shit because people tend to mentally blame the airport not the airline for baggage experience issues.
1. the airfare inflation chart is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI which is calculated differently from the other metrics in the article; it does take into account routes popularity.
2. today’s average Economy ticket is different from the 1990s ticket: meals, seat pitch, seat selection, baggage. service changed to the point that 1990 Standard Economy is more similar to 2025 Premium Economy.
I will say I've been on a number of flights that left late but arrived early/on-time. I think they build a pad into flight time and/or give up fuel efficiency to make up time.
There was an article posted to HN recently (today, even!) that showed how airlines do pad their flight times deliberately.
I think it's reasonable. Even if you depart the gate on time, there could be things out of the airliners' control that cause delays, such as a long queue to take off.
Airfare alone isn’t a great indicator of price, since airlines have been reducing benefits—luggage generally is an upcharge now, whereas it used to be built into the ticket price.
They are very guilty of shrinkflation in general. For example, first class used to get you access to the airport lounges. Now you need a very expensive subscription of some sort to get access.
Lounges have gotten significantly worse since Covid though with overcrowding issues (with some exceptions like KIX), so I don’t think it’s a particularly great loss. My card lets me pay some token amount to gain access to lounges but I’d rather spend that money to get an actual meal cooked for me rather than a buffet and then sit in a quiet corner of the terminal than a crowded lounge.
This varies: a family member of mine flew cross-country a few weeks ago first class (on the company's dime) and was given automatic access to the lounges there.
A 45L backpack ("personal item") and a 50L duffle bag (carry-on) give you a huge amount of space sufficient for pretty much any travels on the cheapest ticket.
The airline charges everyone else $50 per bag, $50 for selecting your seat, gives you $10 off for traveling with a backpack in a middle seat, and pockets $90 after costs. I'm glad you feel lucky about that.
There's even gems like "no carry ons" and "no airline miles" tickets now. They cost the same as the lowest fares last year.
Budget airlines is Europe have figured out an evil approach to avoiding delays.
Airlines are eligible to pay compensation for delays longer than two hours. So they start boarding the aircraft 1.5 hrs after departure, close the doors at the 2 hour mark and then spend the next hours sitting on the tarmac while depriving the passengers of food and drink.
This strategy would save them having to issue food vouchers at the airport, but not delay compensation per se which is based on arrival time at the destination gate.
Or even worse, they load all the passengers into a bus and... just leave them there for an hour or so. And of course the buses are packed with most passengers standing.
The airlines tend to avoid paying compensation by making the whole processes as confusing as possible. What the rules actually say has less affect on the outcome than you might expect.
Readit News
The weirdest part is how subjective the question is. It's like saying, is life getting worse? It turns out there's more than a few ways of looking at that. Air travel is cheap and widely available, despite coming out of a global pandemic, not to mention the global recession before that, among other minor blips. Oh, but you were delayed in getting in your magic metal tube that hurtles through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, letting you sip beer and watch movies in your PJs while traveling thousands of miles in a few hours, arriving safer than any other form of transportation? Man, that's terrible.
Objectively and societally it may be better that more people have access to something, but by definition more people doing something makes it a shittier experience. No metrics or other dimensions necessary.
They say it's worse in terms of delays, cheaper, and safer. This all seems to be perfectly correct.
Rambling about for travel follows ...
I remember back in the 90s when a domestic flight was a major luxury for an upper middle class family. Now just about anyone with disposable income can afford it.
An economy ticket in the 90s was (roughly IIRC) equivalent to business class today in terms of service and first class in terms of price.
Yes, it's a lot cheaper. IMO if someone wants to experience 90s style travel they could upgrade to business or first class but there's a reason why most people don't.
Airlines have also gotten better at saving money on things that won't chase customers away. Delays are always a possibility so just having a better record on delays won't win many customers because they still need to manage the risk of delay. See also meals, seats, and every other thing people hate about air travel - there's always been unpleasant things about air travel, and making them a bit worse and a lot cheaper will win a lot more customers than it loses.
> At no time did they actually talk to somebody in the travel industry.
Ignoring what conclusions they landed on, I'd like to defend this approach.
For a controversial subject, first party expertise or second party direct testimonials will have less weight than actual data and tangible trends.
We're having exceptional access to data, and I personally wish more people would go look for a topic they care about, gather facts and expose their conclusion.
An example of it is Sarah Marshall's essays on Tonya Harding [0] with 0 access, only interviews, police reports and news papers of the time. IMHO it's not competiting with expert analysis or new reporting, and bring a different kind of insight to the table.
https://www.thebeliever.net/remote-control/
I'm not sure I've ever seen this as a pejorative for doing research to come up with sources for data before.
Dead Comment
It used to be FAR more common to get onto airplanes that were partially or even nearly totally empty. The extreme increase in efficiency/total flights combined with privatization means that every tom dick and harry is now flying/being a shitty tourist. I would nationalize all airline industries and I would have done it yesterday primarily because tom and dick should not be flying!
Americans have too much money. Too many low quality Americans (i.e the kind who cause negative stereotypes of Americans abroad) are now traveling who should have stayed home permanently.
Gate keeping is good and the "let people enjoy things" crowd is responsible for why a lot of stuff is now declining in this world.
Tourism is only fun when it's being done in small amounts. The locals of the "tourist dependent localities" certainly agree (and are often willing to take significant economic pain for the benefits of reducing the tourist load). Why not give them what they want for once???
In 2008, airlines began charging for checked bags[1]. This was done both for the immediate revenue increase, and also to prod flyers into airline loyalty programs or airline credit cards to get a free checked bag. However, that caused a lot of casual fliers to go carryon-only. That, in turn, causes it to take longer to board/exit planes, leading to longer turn around times.
I've long contended that airlines should get rid of checked bag fees. And if they feel like they really want to be evil, switch the fees to carryons. That would decrease the number of carryons and decrease the turnaround time.
EDIT: From the article "Starting around 2008, Scheduled flight times began increasing even faster than actual ones" This has me convinced that the bag fees really torpedoed turnaround times.
[1] https://www.farecompare.com/travel-advice/airline-fees-bags-...
Recently, certain airlines have announced that small bags must go under seats so there’s room in overhead storage for roller bags. There goes my leg room and any incentive to pack smaller with just one small backpack.
Now, I’m incentivized to bring the maximum size carry on so that I get overhead space and don’t have to shove smaller bags next to my feet.
More often than not, I get to stash it in the overhead bin. There's often space for something like 3-1/2 rollers in a bin, so I can squeeze my bag in. The option of putting it under my seat is something I save for strict necessity, but it's still preferable to gate-checking.
Deleted Comment
Still, as an example of the best possible case, it does make me wonder how much more efficient loading a plane could be. I can imagine some magic way to use all of the doors, even if in the short term it means walking on the tarmac to one of 4-6 stair cases.
Maybe it doesn't matter. I wonder if anyone has calculated if such a system would save (or lose) money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHbLRjF0vo
https://thepointsguy.com/news/why-the-american-airlines-shut...
https://aerosavvy.com/aviation-terminology/
For that reason, I've never understood the obsession with loading the plane quickly.
Just yesterday I took a flight where they asked everyone to try to hurry up loading so they could get the plane off the ground sooner.
I'm a frequent flyer, and the sheer carelessness of how people waste the time of everyone behind them in the boarding queue still surprises me. As if in the moment they reach their aisle they immediately forget they, too, were waiting...
I do not remember things to be so bad 20 years ago, and even 10 years ago. Some airline staff was quite active in herding the cattle back then, but also the cattle maybe was not as ignorant as today.
But maybe I am just becoming an old, grumpy man, and nothing has really changed. Who knows.
If the whole price had to be flat and bundled into the ticket the experience would be better.
It's also an industry that competes on price, and that tends toward a spiral to the bottom in quality. They aren't allowed to skimp too much on safety stuff, and if they did it'd cost more in the long run, but they are incentivized to make seats tiny and uncomfortable and nickel and dime.
https://southwest50.com/our-stories/a-turning-point-the-birt...
Still, 20 minute turns would be industry-leading.
Passengers preferred carry-on long before fees because checked bags take longer or get lost. I’m not aware of any data showing per-passenger load / unload times have increased.
Per-plane load / unload times have definitely increased, because the average passenger count per flight has increased. Bigger planes + fewer empty seats.
I get free checked bags through my preferred airline's credit card, but still almost never do it because it adds so much time and frustration. The number of times I've had to wait an additional hour+ at baggage claim is ridiculous. And I've had bags lost/misrouted a stupid percentage of the time considering how infrequently I check bags. Fortunately never lost for good, but getting your bags days after you arrive is not great.
Even airlines like Alaska that have their "20 minute guarantee" often exceed it but get away with it because to make a claim you have to wait in line at the understaffed baggage office, wasting even more time after late bags. Get real.
If airlines/airports want to incentivize checking bags they need to do more than just make it free, but make it fast and reliable, too.
They have decided to be evil.
All low costs companies in Europe have been charging for carry ons since the end of Covid. You are only allowed a backpack which has to fit under the sit in front of you for free and adding carry ons is quite expensive, can be nearly as much as the ticket.
Classic airlines have started weighting carry ons before boarding too so it’s only a matter of time before they charge.
For a normal traveler and unless you do a very short trip, prices have actually significantly increased in the past few years.
I agree, but I think another big incentive for people to bring carryons is how the airlines deal with checked baggage. All too often you have to wait forever to collect your bags, or your bag gets damaged, or your bag gets lost (usually not permanently).
With checked bag fees, the airlines took one of the worst aspects of their own service and started charging more for it. And they wonder why nobody wants to check a bag.
If airlines took checked bags seriously I'd check bags more often -- even if I had to pay to check them.
They board and deboard planes insanely quickly. Just about the only good thing about those airlines is that they are super dedicated to on-time operations and not wasting time. They can’t afford to waste any time when they’re offering $25 international flights.
Of course, not having 9 boarding groups of various status levels helps a lot too.
Yet almost 20 years later, the fees largely remain, little has improved.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a discount airline that mandates everyone travel nude without any bags at all.
Would make security and boarding a breeze… no more boarding groups! Planes would be lighter — reduced fuel cost — more environmentally friendly.
Could even charge for premium robes on arrival.
As for payments slowing down boarding: I expect that it does, but the price info I see online suggests that the carryon fees are punitive (more than checked baggage, and with a 100% surcharge for paying at the gate). In other words, the purpose of the fee is more about discouraging people from bringing a carryon in the first place than the revenue it generates.
Frontier doesn't seem to be shy about reminding customers about the gate pay surcharge, either.
> How would they charge for carryons though? Would they charge for say a bag of food you just bought?
Simple. Charge for the right to put a suitcase in the overhead bins. If it can fit under the seat in front of you, in the seat pocket, or if you can wear it, then no problem.
> Also they'd have to put in infrastructure for charging right at the gate
The flight attendants already have the ability to say "sorry, you need to check that" if the bins are full or if an item is too big, and then get the item where it needs to go. They already have the ability to charge your card with a handheld reader if you want to order special food items. I'm failing to see the obstacle here.
getting rid of the carry-on doesn't mean no personal item, it just means you aren't allowed any space in the overhead bin.
I’d pay $60 more per flight just to not have to deal with other people screwing with giant carry on bags, and the repeated announcements that there’s no room in the overhead compartments.
As a bonus, they also set the sizes for checked luggage slightly below industry standards. Good luck finding something close to but below their linear inch limit. I figured this out because instead of checking three small bags, the family now checks one that’s right up to the weight + size limit.
They used to be the best domestic airline (due to enshittification with all the other carriers), and also one of the cheapest. They could have just raised ticket prices by $50 on average and still have been one of the cheapest.
Instead of realizing they were the premium choice, they’re racing to become one of the worst airlines. They even recently announced they’re going to charge extra for legroom early next year.
I wonder how much it will cost them to move the seats around so some of them have inadequate legroom, and how many rows that’ll add.
Anyway, yes, flights have gotten much worse in the last ten years.
It’s been awhile since I’ve boarded less than Group 4 on Delta. But I don’t remember it being that bad even with group 5 - Silver medallion, credit card holders and economy travel.
This is really a safety issue. And tbf, you don't need more. I've traveled internationally with just a laptop bag.
I can't even put my toothbrush in a checked bag anymore.
Maybe in aggregate flights have fewer delays but every single flight I’ve taken this year has been delayed (on top of the padded flight times the article mentions). I’ve flown about half a dozen trips.
I also hate the argument that the free market should solve the pricing problem. Airlines have exclusivity on airport gates. Any frequent flier on the SFO -> EWR route knows that if you want to save money you can book an Alaska flight instead of United but Alaska has significantly fewer gates and usually gets delayed when arriving waiting for one. Flights aren’t exactly equal commodities and even if the airlines were well-run, contracts for these gates are locked in.
Pricing stats here also fail to account for business class vs economy pricing. Business class prices on tickets have skyrocketed, way outstripping purported CPI. In some cases prices have doubled or more since COVID.
Business class tickets are bought by companies not people. You pay for that "subsidy" through more expensive products to pay for that exec's stupid flight to a symposium where they all talk about how great they are and how important their ideas are.
Sure, but business class is still 100% full (and frequent fliers complain that they aren't getting upgrades, so it seems to be mostly paid).
This is like when companies complain that they can't find any good devs, but don't want to pay market rate.
It's odd that in his rush to point the finger at the government monopoly, he seems to have missed that a free market where customers select flights mostly on price naturally tends towards airlines operating lower cruise speeds for better operating economy, and not allowing loads of wiggle room in their schedules to make up for delays.
The idea that actually the real reason why aircraft are operating more slowly and delayed more is because there aren't enough ATCs in position doesn't pass the sniff test at all for anyone that knows the slightest thing about commercial aviation
Well... I mean, objectively, there are not enough ATCs. Staff are being scheduled 6 days a week. Towers at small airports are operating on reduced hours because there aren't enough people, and towers are some airports are being operated with less than full staff (so each person is working multiple tasks).
Whether or not the very real staff shortage is what is causing the delays is not 100% clear. My intuition is that it is, but I don't have any actual data to support that.
Also I think in general increasing utilization of aeroplanes increases revenues and thus makes things more profitable as money is not made while not flying. Easiest way to achieve this is to remove slack like shortening turnover times. Which then results in cascading delays as planes simply are not available at times.
What happens is typically that they hold you on the ground or at the gate until they can appropriately release your flight plan.
My experience of past 2-3 years, even if it's only 30 minutes or so and prior to boarding, there's always a delay now
Because business class is a luxury?
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1. the airfare inflation chart is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI which is calculated differently from the other metrics in the article; it does take into account routes popularity.
2. today’s average Economy ticket is different from the 1990s ticket: meals, seat pitch, seat selection, baggage. service changed to the point that 1990 Standard Economy is more similar to 2025 Premium Economy.
I think it's reasonable. Even if you depart the gate on time, there could be things out of the airliners' control that cause delays, such as a long queue to take off.
It's $300 but the Peak Design backpack is amazing. It has one massive compartment which makes it easy to efficiently cram stuff in there. https://www.peakdesign.com/products/travel-backpack?Size=45L...
Most backpacks seem to compete on maximizing pocket count which isn't good for tetris packing.
There's even gems like "no carry ons" and "no airline miles" tickets now. They cost the same as the lowest fares last year.