Here's Why Air Travel Sucks (And Is About To Get Worse) - More Perfect Union

[TexasTowelie]

The JetBlue-Spirit merger is about to make flying even worse. Four airlines already control 82% of the U.S. market. If JetBlue is allowed to buy up one of the few low-cost airlines, it will cut flights and hike prices industry-wide.

Aviation expert William McGee from American Economic Liberties Project talked with our producer Paula Pecorella about the looming merger and why flying keeps getting more hellish. It wasn't always this bad. Decades ago, flight delays were rare, and planes had gourmet food and spiral staircases. Then deregulation happened.

[Initech]

1. What's making air travel (and 1,000 other industries) worse? Wall St.!

Putting profit above people is truly evil.

[friend of a friend]

2. My first flight was to boot camp back in 1961.

Flying back then was nice. It was great to fly in uniform, they treated you with respect, and if there were any vacant seats in first class, they moved you up there. I haven't flown in a long time because of the way they started to treat people.

[Warpy]

3. Correct except the bit about lining the pockets of the shareholders

Did she miss the bit about 90% of their profits going into stock buybacks, executive pay packages and executive bonuses? That means the thousands of shareholders are getting just 10% of the profits. Yes, they pay dividends, but the big shareholder these days is the monopoly, itself. Shareholders, most of them small, are getting ripped off along with travelers. Big shareholders are getting sold on the ever increasing face value of their shares on the stock market, something that exists only on paper and can evaporate quickly, while the dividends they no longer pay are actual income.

Other than that, yeah. Deregulation = "gimme your wallet."

Whoever said "getting there is half the fun" has never flown on a deregulated airline.