"Basic Economy": A new gimmick by airlines?
Hello monkeys,
I’m sure plenty of you here are often frequent flyers due to the nature of your job as consultants or bankers. I understand that most of the fares are usually paid by your firm, but nevertheless, I think the following article is an important issue for many of us! How ‘Basic Economy’ Actually Makes You Pay More to Fly
Typically $15 to $30 lower than traditional economy, these tickets are designed to allow American, Delta, and United to better compete with ultra-low-cost carriers such as Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc and Spirit Airlines Inc. They target travelers for whom price is more important than convenience, since they carry a pile of additional restrictions—no advance seat assignments, last to board, no changes or upgrades. (And, on United Continental Holdings Inc., no access to overhead bin space.)
Sounds like a good tradeoff, isn’t it? But here’s the magic that these airlines worked out:
While adding these new bargain-basement fares, carriers also raised prices on traditional economy seats. The strategy? If a consumer sees that there’s an even lower class, they’ll pay a little more for the next level up. In other words, this is where basic retailing goes airborne.
The strategy is similar to the ones that fancy restaurants often use with their wine list! Charging exorbitant high prices for some wines and dirt-ass cheap prices for some wines, while marking up their “medium” price wines.
Here’s what a banker has to say about the new strategy that carriers are employing:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Jamie Baker said in a December client note. (He’s a fan of the strategy, though.)Basic economy fares are often unavailable on corporate-travel booking systems because business travelers require more flexibility. As a result, the new class is “a corporate fare increase by another name”
What do you monkeys think?
I fly a lot and US carriers blow. Good for them for making a profit, but it's just trash. Even top tier status barely makes things better.
Basic economy is horrible. I'm literally analyzing how much incremental money I'd have to spend to always fly business or first. Like it's that fucking bad flying nowadays.
Well, considering the number of news about US airlines, I can safely conclude that too.
How do you find international flights though? I'm not a US citizen so I don't really know how bad flying is there.
I'm definitely an outlier, but I'd pay EXTRA to have the option of a standing-only ticket for shorter flights (anything under 8 hours). You know, with the ability to walk around. Even the extra legroom in business class doesn't work for me, I need to be upright (hence standing desk at work, etc).
Meanwhile people are going apeshit over "standing" seats. Bring it.
I made a google search about this.. Really does seem interesting. Don't you think it'd be quite tiring to stand, even for shorter flights though? I wouldn't want to be standing for more than 30 minutes. Plus, they seem to be less safe than traditional seats?
Although I do think that there's a niche market that these airlines can cater to... Maybe create an ultra low-budget airline with standing-only tickets?
Just my two cents haha.
I think it goes without saying that a majority of US airlines are garbage, partially due to customer service, but also because of the old planes. I use to travel through the EU, China, and middle east a bit and its night and day. However, recently I started flying AA and some of their new planes are really nice, business class seats have good head / neck support, a huge TV embedded in the seats, USB and laptop charging ports, etc. With that said, its a big hit or miss with the new planes because most us planes are old.
This is why I stay the heck out of American Airlines' police state whenever possible.
http://www.controller.com
They really aren't much more expensive than cars.
Can you find a plane that matches the old rusty Honda though?
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