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Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

People love to joke, but the reality is that people don't value the things that are being removed -- that's why they're being removed.

WestJet, their main competitor, did this ages ago. People weren't switching en masse despite roughly the same route network. Ergo, it didn't matter to people, so removing it was reasonable. This gave them the ability to lower the sticker price, and makes them more competitive.

Airlines have awful margins. Literally, awful. AA's net margin in 0.5%. AC's net margin is around 10%.

[edit] I'm super tall, and I love flying LCCs like RyanAir and EasyJet, because they charge virtually nothing to get on, and then a low, reasonable fee for an exit row. I pay for what I want, and they're super timely. Economy is economy. On the premium cabin side, sure, there's room to differentiate.

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Economy is economy, sure, but “economy” hides the fact that it is the only option for the vast majority of travelers. Almost everyone here has the financial security to spring for comfort if they want it, but that is not true for the broader population.

Totally, so if cost is your primary driver, you would want the sticker price to be as low as possible right? Aren't those the people who are most willing to compromise on 'frills'? This gives them the opportunity to do that in a way bundled fares do not.

But that's not making the actual price lower. There are few situations where you don't need carry-on, so almost everyone will end up booking a "cheaper" flight, but then paying extra for carry-on.

In fact, obfuscation like that probably allows the airline to charge you more, because you don't get to see all the fees until you commit.

> There are few situations where you don't need carry-on

I have taken tons of flights where I didn’t need a carry on. Either because I already needed to check a bag, or because everything I needed fit in my personal item.

> you don’t get to see all the fees until you commit.

Not true in my experience. Whenever I’ve booked basic economy it seems like they’re very clear about what’s not included.

So you paid another fee for a checked bag (or soon will, given that more and more airlines are converging on that). Either way, you're paying less for the base fare, but more for extras that most passengers need and that used to be free.

As for the second part, I meant "by the time you looked at the dates and hours and clicked on a specific flight".

I am a frequent traveller. This year so far, 50 flights.

I am absolutely for more price options. Why wouldn’t I be? Why would it end up being more expensive?

> So you paid another fee for a checked bag

Usually not. Often I only need a personal item.

And even when I do need a checked bag, that’s fine if I have to pay for it. But then if I don’t also need a carry-on, why should I be paying the same fare as people who do?

> extras…that used to be free

Not free, included in the base fare with no possibility to opt out.

I've never seen an airline that doesn't allow you to confirm what all the fees for ancillary services would be at the time of booking, and if you need to do it right after you pay there's usually a 24h window to refund after booking for no fee.

And having cheaper economy means it is accessible to more travelers.

For some reason people think you can just force companies to offer things at a loss. Requiring all these things you want as mandatory in economy doesn't mean that people with less money will be able to get them. It just means that there will be no airplane tickets they can afford at all.

So what? Are airlines obligated to provide more luxurious service to people than they’re able to pay for? Why exactly? If you think traveling with a carry-on bag is some kind of human right surely the state should be paying for it, not a private business.

I think that view is overly generous. On flights where free check in luggage is offered there’s plenty of room for carry ons in the cabin, so a good amount of people clearly opt for check in when it is free. When they started charging for check in is when it became the norm that people where then pushed to gate check their carry ons for free once space was getting full. People were shifting their behavior to avoid the fee. The result, not surprisingly, is that fee avoidance is too common so the airlines make it more difficult to do so.

It is, of course, a “hidden” price hike with the advantage that your flight remains ranked higher when sorting by price.

I'm certain I read at one point that if you added the total profits of the airline industry from the beginning until now, it's Jess than zero. I don't know whether it's true but it seems like it could be.

I think people value them, it's just that the alternative of flying your own plane has some pretty big costs involved, so you don't have much choice.

They are presumably still offering it a la carte.

Air Canada has 20x higher margins than American airlines? Wow

Airline industry is Canada is hot garbage though. Just like telecom, it's over priced, and not competitive at all.

A single-digit % profit margin would indicate otherwise no?

Profit is the spread between what something is sold for and what was paid for it, so it's not always true. One can look at what similar flights costs in Canada and come to the obvious conclusion that air canada et al are bad at being airlines and are way overpaying for everything to drive much higher ticket prices while having better profit margins that are still terrible.

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