There’s a brand of commentary where nationally syndicated writers take a flight and then decide it is an allegory for the issue they’d like the highlight. Only they don’t have enough context for the airline piece to actually offer useful social commentary, and wind up simply repeating platitudes.
The Washington Post ran a piece on Friday, “Seat pricing on airplanes is the perfect analogy for the wealth gap” framed as “People up front are treated royally while those in the middle and back are often getting squeezed with little room to maneuver.”
- To be sure, coach seats are far from luxurious on most airlines. (I find the Qantas Airbus A380 seat to be not bad, to be honest, and the Singapore Airlines long haul seat quite thoughtful.)
- You can pay more for more space.
If the author had stopped here, there’d be little argument. Naturally, she didn’t. She took a trip to Mexico and came away with:
Much like seating on an aircraft, the differences are stark: Up front you’re treated royally, while those in the middle and the back are often uncomfortable, getting squeezed with little room to maneuver.
American Airlines Domestic First Class
American Airlines Domestic First Class
It’s an old complaint, but are passengers up front on flights between the U.S. and Mexico treated royally? In the 1996 film Jerry Maguire, Renée Zellweger says, “first class, that’s what’s wrong. It used to be a better meal. Now it’s a better life.”
Ironically, since then, the quality of food has declined markedly. And domestically, at least, it’s often not even that much better of a seat – with less legroom up front and a more mass experience, as the average price has come down while the percentage of passengers paying for the ticket has gone up.
American Airlines meal, Austin – Washington Dulles
United Airlines meal, Washington Dulles – Austin
People have been complaining about airline premium cabins as an allegory for inequality for a long time, despite the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act – championed by liberal lion Senator Ted Kennedy and signed by Jimmy Carter – making air travel much more accessible. Air travel used to limited to those who could afford much more expensive tickets. More seats were left empty as the government set prices too high, designed to ensure airline profitability and block competition.
Fly, and you see the wealth disparity on full display.
Even though I can and have upgraded to better seats, watching the boarding process is depressing.
Wealthier fliers — or those with enough reward-points clout to snag an upgrade — can afford to pay for first- or business-class seats, allowing them to board first, sink into wide comfort and sip water or alcohol as the masses slog to their cramped quarters.
Airline passengers as a group are the wealthier ones – wealthier than those who do not fly. Passengers flying in economy aren’t ‘the poor’.
The wealthy can afford to fly private (though many do not) and the upcharge for premium cabins isn’t always substantial, so it can be a question of which upper middle class person prioritizes inflight comfort versus spending disposable income on other things.
And as for those “with enough reward-points” those don’t tend to be the wealthy, though usually not ‘the poor’ (just as airline passengers aren’t) either.
Those with a little more money can buy seats with extra legroom.
Want a window seat? Pay up. Need an aisle seat to stretch out? That will cost you, too.
Does an aisle and a window seat really have to cost extra? Let’s take a look at an American Airlines seat map for a flight to Mexico City. Most of the seats at the front of the cabin (even without extra legroom) cost more to assign in advance if you aren’t a frequent traveler with the airline. Most in back do not.
If you want to make that an allegory of inequality (‘back of the bus’) you can do that, I guess. Seats that people prefer on an aircraft are limited in number. People do value them more, and airlines can offer them first-come first-served, or they can charge people for the thing they want more. So airlines have learned to do that.
The author continues that “because people recline their seats, often making the person behind them even more uncomfortable” and that’s (very) occasionally true, there were far more disruptions on planes in 2021 and 2022 when there was a federal mask mandate. I’m not sure that helps the inequality story?
She then complains about limited overhead bin space, though airlines have been installing bigger overhead bins that accommodate more passengers and don’t charge extra for that space – because airlines don’t like having to gate check carry on bags at the last minute. That delays operations and is costly.
Airlines do want to accommodate bags, even for those who aren’t paying extra. A frequent complaint is that gate agents stop allowing passengers on board with a carry on bag too early, when there’s still space available, out of fear that they might have to gate check (and that the gate agent would get marked down for a delay). That’s not running an airline well, but it’s not singling out those without wealth, either. (And first class passengers who aren’t spending time standing around the boarding area before passengers are let onto the aircraft wind up gate checking bags, too.)
Ultimately the author wants you to think about inequality. And while much was written about rising inequality during the pandemic – no surprise when the Federal Reserve was driving up the price of assets – that increase at least seems to have reversed.
What if inequality were falling — and in particular, delivering real wage gains to those who need it most — and no-one noticed because they were arguing about a fake recession that never happened? pic.twitter.com/hbUjJetOsI
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) July 7, 2023
How much inequality matters, versus absolute living standards which most people think has risen substantially over time, is something people can debate. I just wish they would do this debate less based on their one-off Mexico vacation. And if you are going to insist that it was, maybe spill a few paragraphs of ink considering wealth inequality between the U.S. and Mexico?
(HT: @crucker)
QF A380 coach seats are indeed pretty good, although not as comfortable as their 747 seats were. But the A380 is so large that you have a good chance for an empty middle seat or even an empty row.
A guy flying from a vacation in Mexico does not like his seat and decided to re-iterate the same talking points now in a form of a WaPo article to collect some honorarium. I read his article and that is an empty piece and is not journalism.
I have a friend who always buys basic economy but is currently shopping for a new sport Lexus coupe. Coming this Dec, you will find him in back of a plane flying to an all-inclusive in Mexico while his shiny all new $60-80k ? car is parked in his garage. He will obviously complain about inequality passing some higher status flyers, some folks who are concerned of Covid and who took an offer of buying up First for $50, or non-revenue friends of the GA. – all seated in F/J.
I left this comment at the Post and I’ll leave it here. Air travel is a terrible analogy for wealth inequity. With commercial air travel, everyone arrives at the same location at the same time. Few things in life are more equitable.
How about requiring airlines to release empty seats to the homeless? (Los Angeles is voting on that except it is for hotels)
@Derek
Lol. Thought that immediate thing as well.
Dang, now if I drive my Bentley to the airport,they are going to require everyone have a Bentley.
Equality and all that
Remember, First Class is there to remind others that they are NOT in First Class!!
Riding in back sucks. If you’re an unusually tall and large person like me it sucks even worse and if the person in front reclines it actually becomes painful. Regardless, my discomfort is a pretty bad analogy for wealth disparity since I can at least technically afford to not fly in the worst seats.
I think the writers might have done better by simply sticking with how bad economy sucks and how the likelihood of evacuating a smoke filled cabin filled with a normal mix of passengers is exceedingly low, and therefore we must make economy better to improve safety.
First. World. Problems.
The inequality between those sitting in the pointy end and those sitting in the back, in this country at least, is essentially non existent when you compare the inequality of those sitting in the back and the over 1 BILLION living on less that $2 a day. If you make federal minimum wage and work full time you are in the global 1%.
99% of passengers in the back don’t really care. Really.
I don’t see a wealth gap on a commercial fight because all I care about is getting from point A to point B, because I never pay for any extras like the “extra legroom” or preboarding or anything else. Especially NOT the food; I didn’t pay to wine and dine on an airplane.
Gary, that image of an old USAIR A320 first class seat missing has been used for the past 8 years or so. I have seen similar on DL and SW so find a new photo. Not since my arm rest broke off and slide down the aisle on take off on a TWA DC-9 have I seen anything like this and my 100K a year gives me creds.
Get a new photo and maybe think about how service was in the 90’s and early 2000’s, it’s much better now.
@sunviking82 – “Gary, that image of an old USAIR A320 first class seat missing has been used for the past 8 years or so.”
I’ve had and shared more recent ones, and no that photo isn’t 8 years old don’t be silly.
The one time I booked first class was on a trip back from Hawaii to California after a prolonged stay to help my father-in-law through end of life. My husband has a very painful neuropathic condition – CPS. We requested additional leg room for his condition so he could stretch his legs to ease the pain. We were put in the two seats immediately next to the entry door on the left and the bathroom on the right. This meant we had 3-6 people standing in front of us or on our feet the entire flight. My husband was trying to keep back the tears after an hour and a half or so into the flight I finally asked the flight attendant if there wasn’t another bathroom in the plane and explained my husband’s condition. She then started detouring some people to the back of the plane. The food wasn’t any better. The seats weren’t any better and the only reason we had the idea of more leg room was because there was an isle between us and the airline attendant’s jump seats, which was taken up by the aforementioned passengers lining up to use the restroom. We paid significantly more for “first class” for the worst flight experience we have ever had. Now we volunteer for the emergency exit rows that have additional leg room.
You want it go earn it. It is just t about equality. Even god do not create human equal one another.
I (the son of a retired commercial pilot of 30+ years) must wholeheartedly disagree.
While there are many people who cannot afford to fly, flying is a relatively accessible form of transport for the vast majority of people, and the only viable form of long distance transportation for many people for whom driving etc is not an option (think Pacific Islanders).
All that being said, it’s abundantly clear to anyone who flies that flying coach is miserable and flying first class is a delight. Even if there has been a recent decline in the quality in first class, you can bet your ass I’d always rather be in first class if I could.
Can I afford it? No. Am I poor? No.
There is definitely a wealth disparity between first class and economy. To claim otherwise is showing your privilege.
I make low 6 figures as an individual which is obviously a lot of money in historical and global terms and far far far beyond what I need to be comfortable. However, I’ve found that people making mid 5 figures tend to get a bit annoyed if you point out the wealth gap between them and the rest of the world and the wealth gap between me and them is 1) much larger 2) much more meaningful (money’s marginal returns on happiness diminishes).
Inequality is becoming more common in the airline industry. The creation of “premium economy” is emblematic of this change. Travelers are being upsold on seating sizes that used to be standard in economy years ago. And for the extra money you end up with the same level of service as an economy passenger with often the same food. In reality the airlines are reducing the number of economy seats that are available on a flight giving them the ability to raise economy fares because of scarcity and forcing some passengers to purchase a premium seat if economy is sold out. It’s the worst kind of crass capitalism.
A really poor article. The author obviously spent her time in the family resorts in Q. Roo, Nayarit, Jalisco or B.C.S., and didn’t bother to leave the tourist areas. But she had enough money to take her family on an international vacation. And she then writes about wealth disparity.
Nor did she really view wealth disparity in Mexico, based on the article, because none of this occurred to her until she was flying home. She certainly didn’t view the wealth disparity in Mexico City, or compare the neighborhoods east of the Circuito with Polanco or Reforma. (And, yes, I spent time consulting in Mexico City in the mid-90s.)
As the satirist/singer/songwriter (and avowed socialist) Phil Ochs observed: “In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson in safe logic.”
Nobody who can afford to travel by jet airplane can plausibly be called “poor”.
Spot on dude. Refreshing to see an article like yours calling out the other article’s agenda. More please.