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Let's Buy Spirit Air

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601–610 of 628 posts

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#601
post #358
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a customers' immediate point of view, this sucks for you. But it's great they are not regulated utilities. Because either everyone would have to pay for extra legroom, even if they don't need it, or some freakishly long people would not be able to pay for the extra legroom that they need.

That's not how regulation works. Or at least not how it has to work. I don't pay a flat fee for my water, electricity, or gas usage, regardless of how much I use. I pay for the gallons, kWh, and therms I actually use. (Yes, there are other fees on those bills, but my usage actually matters.) Airline regulation doesn't have to specify standardized seat pitch, etc.

Sure, there's probably some utopian nirvana regulation that gives you exactly what you need.

In practice airline regulation did preclude the airline from adding more seats. So in practice it banned airlines from offering you cheaper fares in return for enduring less legroom.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#602
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a customers' immediate point of view, this sucks for you. But it's great they are not regulated utilities. Because either everyone would have to pay for extra legroom, even if they don't need it, or some freakishly long people would not be able to pay for the extra legroom that they need.

Airline regulation as common carriers is not a hypothetical. We used to do it, and none of the things you describe were an issue

In practice airline regulation did preclude the airline from adding more seats. So in practice it banned airlines from offering you cheaper fares in return for enduring less legroom.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#603
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All loyalty programs are stupid. People waste their time on 1-2% savings. It is insane.

That's one free round trip international flight per year in a lot of cases. Plus sometimes other benefits like theft insurance, warranty extension, phone insurance, etc. You're subsidizing everyone else if you're not trying to get the best loyalty program.

No, the loyalty programs are earning the company money by you wasting money on expensive airlines or by selling your data.

And you are wasting so much time on small gains.

Refusing to play is the best strategy here.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we let the free market do its work, there'd be no airlines. Jet fuel is heavily subsidized, the State injects massive amounts of money into airports and plane manufacturers, etc. Honestly, with the looming climate crisis, we should probably just let them fail one by one and let alternatives (who can actually be profitable) take off.

In a free market, every working citizen could easily afford more expensive airline tickets, since they could keep their entire income with no taxes deducted.

But the air travel system (airports/atc/etc) would not exist, because taxes were needed to bootstrap it.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ive never experienced that on ryanair? I fly it pretty regularly, its just the food cart, and even that feels halfhearted, I see maybe 3% of customers actually getting something, so most of the time they dont even bother asking, just roll right on by unless you go out of your way to ask for something. The only bad upsell they do is in the booking process. Are you sure you don't want a hire car?

They state they sell scratchcards on their own website: https://corporate.ryanair.com/about-us/giving-back/ If you search "Ryanair scratchcards" you'll see recent news articles about them. I've used Ryanair once in the previous 5 years, so my experience might be out of date. There was a time my job was taking me to "holiday" destinations for meetings, back then I used Ryanair more often as they often had the only dir…

googling it it seems like its still a thing. I reckon it must be on certain specific flights, maybe ones that are likely to attract a certain crowd, liverpool to malaga sort of flights maybe. Ive definitely not heard about it, but I do usually fly the same routes so

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Spain, a similar length high speed train route would be Madrid-Barcelona, that's 400miles and takes 2h 30min. If you offer me the same price for flying than for taking the high speed train, I'll take the train every time. In practice it'll take less travel time, no security lines or theater (no problem bringing your water bottle or whatever), you can bring more luggage, you can stand up/walk/visit the bar during t…

there will be no theater until a terrorist attacks it and then it will be exactly the same

We've had terrorists attacks on trains around here, and the only theater we have is a super quick xray scan of our baggage.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#607
post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a free market, every working citizen could easily afford more expensive airline tickets, since they could keep their entire income with no taxes deducted.

But the air travel system (airports/atc/etc) would not exist, because taxes were needed to bootstrap it.

Modern governments have their fingers involved everywhere. That doesn't mean that nothing would exist and nobody would survive if things were different.

You could just as well say that if it weren't for private investors nothing and nobody would exist, because they also have their fingers involved everywhere.

But the post I'm replying to is a scenario of a different world. We're not discussing how things actually are and how things actually happened.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#608
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's straight math. Not assuming any stops or slow downs. According to Gemini this hypothetical train would take about 18 hours. It would also cost hundreds of billions of dollars and a decade to build. Doesn't do much for seeing Uncle John next Tuesday. I like trains. I like them a lot. But they don't work over long distances. Particular when you have dozens of state and city jurisdictions to cross. Each of them g…

18 hours with seats comfortable enough to sleep in, easy to get up and move around to lounge cars, wifi, and plenty of pretty views? Add some showers onboard and you're totally set. I think there are plenty of people who would take that over flying. A direct flight from NYC to San Francisco is almost 7 hours, not counting the wildly variable time needed to get to the airport and make it to your gate, and then you're…

Yes, or trains with comfortable sleeper coaches. This is how a lot of intercity rail works in India. I took the Delhi-Bombay Rajdhani express all the time when I was younger; would catch the train in the evening, tasty dinner and breakfast provided on train. The views were breathtaking; its the first time the vastness of India became so clear to me (and how many people were still engaged in farming). It would be so nice to have that in the US.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#609
post #96
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like it's not efficient at all? it's barely functional as a business and is only surviving on grifty addons?

This is a textbook case of competition pushing profits down to 0. That's an ideal case scenario. Why would you want to change this?

Because of the "grifty addons" part. Is that not obvious? This situation is not ideal.

Re: Let's Buy Spirit Air

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's straight math. Not assuming any stops or slow downs. According to Gemini this hypothetical train would take about 18 hours. It would also cost hundreds of billions of dollars and a decade to build. Doesn't do much for seeing Uncle John next Tuesday. I like trains. I like them a lot. But they don't work over long distances. Particular when you have dozens of state and city jurisdictions to cross. Each of them g…

> It would also cost hundreds of billions of dollars and a decade to build. Doesn't do much for seeing Uncle John next Tuesday. You just described the building of the interstate highway system, but I doubt there’s a person alive who would say it wasn’t worthwhile. I fear Americans are simple to selfish to have any desire to do time consuming expensive things that will improve their country long term. They just want b…

I think Americans aren’t as selfish as most people believe; it’s just that they don’t know any better. Education and awareness is key to change that.
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