Even carry-on bags are getting less
room: Alaska Airlines reduced the size
of bags it allows onboard by 32 percent
in June, and certain airlines won’t
allow you to bring a carry-on at all
unless you pay a fee.
But it’s not just irritations such as
small bathrooms and vacuum-packed
seating that make modern-day air
travel so unpleasant. Planes today
take of 85 percent full, according to
the Department of Transportation, so
there’s plenty of competition for space
in overhead bins and little chance you’ll
end up next to an empty seat. And as
anyone who has purchased a ticket
online knows, the price you wind up
paying can bear little resemblance to
the one that lured you in, once the
numerous ancillary fees and other
additional charges are factored in.
Flying wasn’t always so frustrating.
Many of us fondly remember the days
before deregulation, when the fare was
the fare and airlines battled for our
business by trying to outpamper us. But
with low-cost, no-frills carriers such as
Allegiant, Frontier, and Spirit nibbling
away at the market share of giants such
as American, Delta, and United, these
legacy airlines followed the lead of
their low-cost competitors and began
charging for niceties that were once
included, such as allowing passengers
to choose their seats or to carry on a
bag. “They became ruthlessly focused
on cost reduction,” says Samuel Engel,
an analyst who leads the aviation group
at consulting company ICF.
In their most recent gambit to attract
cost-conscious liers and increase proits,
the major carriers have carved economy
class up into three tiers: basic economy,
a bare-bones, highly restricted fare;In September, American Airlines began
service from Miami to Los Angeles—a
light of just under 6 hours—on its Boeing
737 Max aircraft. The plane is a feat
of aviation engineering that Boeing
says is 14 percent more fuel-ecient
and travels 600 nautical miles farther
than earlier versions of the 737. It is
also one of the most recent examples
of how cramped air travel has become:
It carries 12 more passengers (for a total
of 172) than American’s other 737s, all
of them shoehorned in by moving the
seats closer together in all classes and
shrinking the bathrooms so much that
some people have reported diculty
turning around in them or washing their
hands without getting soaked.
28 CR.ORG DECEMBER 2018