Are passengers’ insatiable urge for cheap fares to blame for poor airline service?
Bill McGee, a former Consumer Reports Travel Editor and FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher, thinks the answer is NO. In a column for USA Today, he argues that consumers are shafted by airlines and should not just take it sitting down.
Let’s start out with his premise:
Why are airline seats the lone products on the market that consumers are faulted for comparison shopping for the best price? Only with airlines are shoppers badgered over their choices in this oddest form of corporate victim-shaming.
Last week, I bought a half-gallon of 1 percent milk. The grocery store offered four choices, ranging from a premium brand at $3.99 to the store brand at $2.39. Since all four offered similar sell-by dates, I happily opted for the store brand. But what if later I discovered the milk was sour? Or the container had ruptured? Well, I would have asked for a refund and promptly received it. No one would tell me, “But you bought the cheap milk – what did you expect? Why didn’t you upgrade to Farmer’s Cow? You know better milk could be available, but people like you buy cheap stuff and hurt the rest of us!”
I find this such a poor analogy in so many ways. If milk represents airline tickets and you buy a flight that is canceled (sour) or a seat that is broken (ruptured), you WILL be re-accommodated or refunded. Airlines cannot just take the money and run…
McGee “happily opted for the store brand” and that is a wonderful choice for those consumers looking to buy affordable milk. Personally, I like organic milk and pay extra for it. And while I would love for everyone to drink organic milk, it is a scarce resource like the forward cabins of airplanes. It is also objectively more expensive to raise free-range cows that roam and eat grass instead of those fattened up for milk and meat in slaughterhouses. So too, the extra space and service in premium cabins comes at a cost. Just like there is a cost to making organic milk, there is a cost to more legroom.
More False Analogies
His diatribe continues with more false analogies:
If you lease an inexpensive car, you don’t expect the brakes to fail. If you book the cheapest hotel room, you don’t expect bedbugs. So why are you to blame if you buy the cheapest airline ticket and the seat pitch gives you deep vein thrombosis, a.k.a.“economy-class syndrome”? Or the flight is delayed? Or there’s no overhead bin space?
McGee doesn’t like the premise that consumers can sell away their comfort to save money. But his proposal of mandatory minimum seat pitch, overhead bin space, and service levels would price many out of the market. Deep vein thrombosis can be a problem even in business class and is best remedied by getting up and walking. That is why the seat belt light goes off. In essence, it is not a valid safety concern.
Another problem, McGee argues, is that most Americans who fly only fly once per year. Thus, they do not have the same expectations as the “coastal elites” over what to expect when buying a basic economy fare. Actually, airlines have gone out of their way to discourage passengers from buying basic economy fares, hoping they will pay more for standard fares. A passenger really has no basis upon which to complain if they accept the disclaimers associated with basic economy class fares.
He concludes that we are being treated unfairly:
Just because many passengers want to pay less doesn’t mean they asked for tight seats and poor service. Sour milk is sour milk – at any price. So never let the airfare determine if you should defer fighting for your passenger rights or accept being treated unfairly.
Sour milk is not tight seat pitch. The seat is still FAA-verified and has undergone strict and strenuous safety tests. It’s not like U.S. airlines are throwing people in the back of the pick-up truck…(that’s TUI and not acceptable).
CONCLUSION
We are in a wonderful era of cheap fares. I love the downward pressure on pricing that the ultra-low-cost carriers bring to the market. In McGee’s world, everyone would pay more for airfare to have more legroom and other amenities that are likely not as important as saving money to many passengers. The market is not our savior, but the market is working here. A passenger cannot sell away her safety, but a passenger should certainly be able to trade in her comfort.
What do you think about blaming passengers for poor airline service?
Yes and no. On the one hand, yes, we as consumers get what we pay for. The simple laws of economics dictate that if you demand that prices remain static over time, you’re going to get a degradation in product to make up the difference. You keep demanding $199 transcons for a high fixed cost product where those fixed costs increase, and the airlines are going to have to cut something to keep everything equal.
On the other hand, the airlines have themselves to blame for the backlash in many ways. They insisted fuel surcharges were necessary to deal with high oil prices – then kept them around after oil crashed during the last recession. They try to spin every new fee or product downgrade as an “enhancement” that “gives customers choice”, rather than being honest that the changes are a necessary evil so that you can keep flying for $158 roundtrip from Dallas to LA. They charge us $200 change fees for something like a date or scheduling mistake not caught within 24 hours, but they can change their schedules and rescind “mistake” fares on a whim, and they claim they owe us nothing. I could go on but you get the point.
So, I can see why people don’t trust the airlines and feel fleeced. Because the airlines haven’t exactly acted in good faith in this regard.
These are good points. The backlash is warranted, but I don’t think that’s the point here.
“Basic” is just that. When you shop, you know paying less = getting less. Maybe the $200 change fee is egregious but that’s not unique to cheap tickets. Even very expensive business tickets (if not flexible) require it.
Being able to trade comfort for price is a fundamental concept we enjoy. So long as safety doesn’t suffer, we should celebrate the choice. Want free changes and a comfy seat? There’s a fare for that.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, and in fact, on a basic level (no pun intended), I have no problem with the pricing structures the airlines have put in place. I gladly pay for Main Cabin Extra, for example, because $400 roundtrip for 36″ of pitch and free booze is great value, considering that on an inflation adjusted basis, it’s probably still cheaper than what I paid 20 years ago for less.
But the question asked at the end was “what do you think about blaming passengers for poor service?” And that’s where I think the airlines have to share some of the blame. When they constantly try to spin their changes as “enhancements” and act in a duplicitous manner as they do with change fees and mistake fares, the average passenger is going to feel fleeced, regardless of the reality of the situation. If they’d been more honest and upfront, I think more people would accept the proposition of paying less for less.
I think both you and MeanMeosh are spot on in your analysis. The product is being driven by consumers who only look at one variable when buying a coach ticket, price. Every time an airline has tried to differentiate based on product it’s failed (though JetBlue may be a possible exception).
But I also think MeanMeosh is correct that airlines generate a lot of the anger themselves by how they market their product and treat their customers.
“If you lease an inexpensive car, you don’t expect the brakes to fail. If you book the cheapest hotel room, you don’t expect bedbugs. So why are you to blame if you buy the cheapest airline ticket and the seat pitch gives you deep vein thrombosis”
Seat pitch is advertised. If hotels could advertise bedbug infested rooms for cheap instead of paying to fumigate the place, they would. And the point about DVT is stupid, it’s not the airline’s responsibility to make sure you stand up and walk around every so often. DVT can happen even in first class seats it’s not related to legroom.
“They try to spin every new fee or product downgrade as an “enhancement” that “gives customers choice”, rather than being honest that the changes are a necessary evil so that you can keep flying for $158 roundtrip from Dallas to LA.”
I mean yeah, but this isn’t relegated to the airlines. All companies do this. It’s called marketing. Maybe in some industry there’s a niche for some company to display that kind of “brutal honesty” and win consumer trust that way, but nobody wants to be the first to try!
“They charge us $200 change fees for something like a date or scheduling mistake not caught within 24 hours”
Again, I see what you’re saying, but you get like 4 chances to review your itinerary before clicking Accept. How many times do they have to give you before you will agree that a scheduling mistake is the customer’s fault? 10? 20?
And this is why I fly Turkish Aitlines going international most of the time. Most of the time I am in economy. Good fares for usually well under a $1000, but not bellow $500 either. Solid meals, solid service, seat selection, bags, amenity kit, and foot rest included.
I pretty much agree. It is like buying cheese – I can buy store brand American cheese, and it will be cheap, but it will not be as good as an artisanal aged cheddar. And that is my fault for buying it, not the store’s for offering it. However, that is not all it is about. If I get to the check-out line and it is 20 persons long for no particular reason, I’d still think the store had management problems that were not related to my desire to buy only cheap cheese.
I do tend to think that a lot of occasional flyers do not understand what they are buying in economy or basic economy (and how much worse it can be compared to first) on various airlines. And that leads to a lot of complaints. Sure it is all disclosed, but I don’t think it registers.
Personally, I think there is a point when you go from being an occasional flyer to a frequent one where a light bulb goes off and you realize that flying does not have to be awful if you are just willing to devote some time to figure out how to get into first or business at a reasonable price.
Blaming and shaming the victim. There are certain minimum safety standards (very high actually) that all airlines must meet. Would not be doifficult for adOT tonjmplement sinar safety standards for seat size, irregular ops etc. if we banned crony capitalist lobbyists from Washington.
Your auto analogy is useful. Carmakers lroduce every type of vehicle from low energy to high quality and make profits at all levels. Why are travelers forced to accept bottom basement crappy product when many prefer the reliable higher priced Honda (but not first class BMW)
I am fine with option to pay more for bigger seats etc what I am not fine with is the bipolar choice of a horrible seat or an F seat that is priced 10x higher.
Washington could regulate those things. And ticket prices would go up. I’d be fine with that actually. But no one is forced to buy a bad seat on a plane. There are lots of choices. Some people are just cheap. And others do it because they don’t know any better.
“I am fine with option to pay more for bigger seats etc what I am not fine with is the bipolar choice of a horrible seat or an F seat that is priced 10x higher.”
Except that’s not the bipolar choice you have. You can purchase “Economy Plus” or the equivalent starting at about $75 each way over the cost of Basic Economy. Granted, the infrequent traveler might not understand that, but still…
The author’s piece just comes across as whining, plain and simple. The old adage, “you get what you pay for” is true and always has been. That doesn’t have to be a big negative, but it is what it is.
I think that you’re just annoyed over the “coastal elite” remark. The guy’s points are sadly accurate overall.
It’s precisely because of strict regulations that the price of airtickets are expensive. FAA doesn’t even care if the seats are safe or that they are fit for flying, they are just puppets of the money making conglomerates. Society is always defined by the richest and the most powerful and it will take mistakes and errors, mostly fatal before corrective action is taken.
Lower fares -> Lower People. This explains why airline travel has degraded so much. The quality of people who fly has just gone down.
I believe the pax are more at fault than the airlines here. It’s passengers who look for the lowest fare, its passengers who don’t educate themselves on what the different fare classes, and Tand C of the airlines include.
If you wish to fly long distances for peanuts, expect to be treated like a trained monkey. Airlines need to balance the books. Low costs equates to less space, in most instances.