5/4/2026 at 1:15:22 AM
Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them.Unless this initiative will turn into a credit card company (which nobody likes or wants to do) it won't go anywhere
Private equity will likely sell the company for parts. There is no operational improvements for cash flow that they can do.
Useful watch (skip to 2:20): https://youtu.be/ggUduBmvQ_4?si=cyysP7aH_CIEDZRq
by rapatel0
5/4/2026 at 2:13:49 AM
Why does any of this imply they should become a regulated utility? This seems like a textbook case of the free market pushing prices down to cost. Having alternative revenue streams pushed that minimal price down; but even without that, there is no reason to think the market would have done anything other than push prices to the lowest level possible in that environment as well.by gizmo686
5/4/2026 at 2:24:03 AM
Company makes too much money: "they're extracting monopolist rents! They need to be a regulated utility!"Company makes too little money: "there's no money in this industry! They need to be a regulated utility!"
by gruez
5/4/2026 at 1:47:11 PM
Yea that's a good one. The problem is folks don't have patience. They see an airline fail and instead of waiting until a new competitor enters the market, as they inevitably will, they want to start regulating or look to other "solutions" but these things take time to work themselves out. It's a free market, not an instant free market.by ericmay
5/4/2026 at 3:21:09 AM
A more fair assessment would be: company runs a utility => they need to be a regulated utility!The core part of air travel doesn’t really feel any different to a bus or metro or train. Off the tarmac then yes it absolutely feels like a Verizon store, as does some of the in-flight service, but there’s always been this weird feeling as a traveler that every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decals on it. Airline alliances are surely the ultimate example of this.
by gorgoiler
5/4/2026 at 3:33:53 AM
Have you ever flown spirit or any of the other ultra low cost carriers?It very much is a different experience than flying a legacy domestic mainline carrier. I’m not alone amongst people i know who will happily fly the cheap seats on United/Delta/AA but won’t even look at a ticket from Spirit or Frontier even at a significant discount.
Compare it to a flag carrier like Singapore air and it is a shockingly different product.
All that’s an aside: we know what regulated airlines look like since we already tried it, much more expensive, with airlines competing not on price but on amenities.
by dghlsakjg
5/4/2026 at 3:44:35 AM
I’ve flown Spirit and Frontier several times, and Southwest many times (I know they’re not quite in the same category, especially after their recent changes). I genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to regarding the experience being wildly different. Other than a few quirks about what they do and don’t charge for and how they board and assign seats, I feel like there’s almost no meaningful difference between these and legacy carriers like United and American. I honestly don’t even feel like the prices are consistently that different.by tshaddox
5/4/2026 at 4:18:57 AM
The two main differences are more armchair lawyering required to avoid fees (legacy carrier is often not going to put your bag in the dimension bin, but the Spirits and Frontiers of the world certainly will) and having to sit through three sales pitches instead of one on the legacy airlines. I think Delta is the only legacy carrier in the States that doesn't do obnoxious sales pitches - only the food cart upsell. Ryanair will come through with their hands out minimally three times since last time I rode them (though it's been several years, is it four now?)One other difference I can think of is that carry-ons are more rarely included in the base fare in the budget airlines than the legacy airlines, though maybe that has also gone away since the changes where bags must be included in the listed price that Southwest pushed for.
by SOLAR_FIELDS
5/4/2026 at 6:22:36 AM
> having to sit through three sales pitches instead of oneI’m not from the US and have never flown any of the airlines being discussed here.
I’ve never heard of this, is there some YouTube videos you can point me to.
by thrownthatway
5/4/2026 at 9:15:25 AM
Ryanair (EU) also does this, but the US is indeed pretty obnoxious here.United even has commercials before the safety video; combined with the "if you're watching explicit content on this flight, please mind the children" announcement, those flights onestly honestly felt pretty surreal to me.
by miki123211
5/4/2026 at 9:42:15 AM
United has gotten worse and worse with this. The ads after (not before) the safety video, and also before each movie you watch (and it's usually the same ads before every movie). A few years ago the ads were skippable, but not anymore.The flight attendant also makes an announcement about the United-branded credit cards near the beginning of the flight.
But this is really just an illustration of what the top-poster of this thread said: flying people places doesn't make enough money, so they have to pursue other revenue streams.
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 6:34:45 AM
I can't find videos.The cabin crew stand at the front of the plane, and either play a recording or make an announcement saying you can buy a lottery scratchcard for €2 or whatever, with some of the money going to charity. They then walk down the plane "scratchards? scratchcards?"
They repeat this with a collection for charity (no scratchcard), a promoted drink, and some sort of food.
I think this is mostly unique to Ryanair (in Europe), I don't remember Wizz Air, Norwegian or EasyJet doing this. Part of Ryanair's marketing is to make the experience worse than it needs to be, so you know you're saving money.
by Symbiote
5/4/2026 at 9:20:41 AM
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?
by RugnirViking
5/4/2026 at 8:42:37 AM
Yes, Ryanair is the undisputed leader in finding new creative ways to take advantage of their captive audience and saving a few pennies here and there (e.g. I'm not aware of other low-cost carriers that have advertising on the overhead bins or put the safety instructions on seat-back stickers because it's marginally cheaper than using cards for that). Not to mention only flying from airports in the middle of nowhere to save airport fees....while other low-cost carriers try to distinguish themselves by not being quite as bad as Ryanair.
by rob74
5/4/2026 at 10:16:39 AM
I kinda' like Ryanair as lowcost airline? They're fairly efficient (boarding, serving etc), they _actually fly_ the advertised flights (with relatively few exceptions), and the food is reasonably priced. During COVID they would just give your money back, no shenanigans like "they're in our company wallet". Sure they have their quirks but they don't seem to go out of their way to deceive you, they're pretty open about what you pay and what you get.Now Wizzair is "mostly not an airline" for me, because they have all the negative traits I hinted above. E.g. they'll happily advertise flights they have no intention of flying, make refunds hard, are as misleading as they can be about pricing, make it impossible to checkin online a few hours before the flight so that you have to pay their high fees, etc.
I wouldn't want the Ryanair experience for long-haul flights; but for short 2-3h ones within Europe, they're fine, I'm always considering them. Not for the perceived cheapness, but for the "I expect them to actually fly AND be on time" part.
by virgilp
5/4/2026 at 11:06:51 AM
> During COVID they would just give your money back, no shenanigans like "they're in our company wallet"Generally I agree with your view that Ryanair is decent at what it does, but COVID refunds happened only after the regulator stepped in to threaten them over their original "no refunds" and then "refund in the form of a voucher, with a short expiry date on it" policies actually being unlawful, and even allowing for the scale of its operations it received more complaints to the UK CAA than anyone else about refund handling during COVID.
by notahacker
5/4/2026 at 12:46:37 PM
In Romania I think they just gave back the money (or maybe it was on a voucher with "if you don't use the voucher by date X, we'll refund the money"). which is in stark contrast with how other low-cost airlines like WizzAir behaved. Perhaps it was regional policy; or perhaps it was due to their previous interactions with UK regulators? But for me, they gained a lot of respect for them back then (whereas WizzAir is on the "only if absolutely no other choice" list - and I think I only used it once, for a business trip where it had a good direct flight AND I didn't care if I actually made it to the destination, or if I got stranded there for a few days - since the company would've been paying)by virgilp
5/4/2026 at 10:06:14 AM
They don't have to actually sell a single scratchcard for it to be worthwhile for them - the whole point is to cheapen the experience.They have an entire theory of marketing based on people believing that "if it feels cheap, it is cheap", and so they deliberately build in a bunch of annoyances (scratchcards, arbitrary baggage restrictions, checkout hoop-jumping, endless PR about removing toilets or running standing-only flights) which serve to make their service seem as cheap and nasty as possible.
And it works: some people simply ignore the nasty aspects, others are willing to put up with them in order to get a bargain, and yet others actually take pride in wading through the crap - usually expressing it in "I beat the system" terms. And here we are talking about it on a barely-related thread - carrying their marketing message further!
by roryirvine
5/4/2026 at 8:27:31 AM
Haha what! That’s wild.by thrownthatway
5/4/2026 at 6:22:21 AM
I haven’t actively surveyed all the airlines, but I happened to notice recently that United charges for carry-ons.by tshaddox
5/4/2026 at 4:37:03 AM
I feel like you're living in a different universe then. I will literally never fly Spirit (well, neither will anyone else) nor Frontier ever, I loath the experiences I've had on them so much.First, as someone with relatively long thighs, I literally don't fit in their sardine can seats. But more relevant to most people, while things may be OK if everything goes perfectly and nothing is delayed or cancelled, you are completely SOL with Spirit/Frontier if something goes wrong (and "something" may just be they themselves decide to cancel an undersold flight at the last minute). It's nearly impossible to get someone to talk to, I feel like the employees know how shitty their companies are so they all have an attitude like they DGAF, and it's a mad (expensive) scramble to find alternative arrangements at the last minute.
I've never had as abysmal experiences as I've had on Frontier compared to any other airline.
by hn_throwaway_99
5/4/2026 at 5:07:12 AM
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.
by eru
5/4/2026 at 7:37:33 AM
Why do you think being regulated utilities would preclude having multiple classes of service? Airlines had first class before deregulation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_class_(aviation)#Historyby twiss
5/4/2026 at 10:31:39 AM
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.
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 7:57:59 AM
Ah yes, because I am also forced to buy the same amount of electricity and water from my regulated utility regardless of need.by vineyardmike
5/4/2026 at 6:18:02 AM
I’m relatively tall and have a generally rough (but tolerable) time with all domestic bottom-tier seats.I have no difficulty believing you when it comes to customer service. I’ve never had any issues requiring anything beyond the most basic customer service, so I just haven’t been exposed to differences between airlines in that regard. I also understand that a bad experience can leave an exceptionally bad impression. I suppose the only thing that might surprise me is if the higher-cost airlines don’t also have terrible service.
by tshaddox
5/4/2026 at 5:21:44 AM
Yup, came here to say this. Once you're on the plane and its in the air, Spirit and Frontier are like pretty much every other domestic airline. There's slight variation in terms of whether you get a whole can of coke for free or not. If you're taller than me, the 28" of seat pitch vs say 31" on delta may make a difference, but I'm only 5'9".I still avoided them like the plague because the legacy carriers are selling you operational performance and the ability to usually get you where you're going within a reasonable timeframe if you're delayed or canceled. Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, whoever else, do not do nearly as good a job when something goes wrong. Although they should get a lot of credit - none of them have ever had a fatal crash.
by SmellTheGlove
5/4/2026 at 8:41:56 AM
> Once you're on the plane and its in the air, Spirit and Frontier are like pretty much every other domestic airline.Yes, if you ignore the part where things are different, it's basically the same. Trouble is, those differences do meaningfully make a difference. There's no objective measure for misery and happiness, but flying Jsx is nicer than Spirit. You can put a dollar value on misery, that's why one's so much more expensive than the other.
by fragmede
5/4/2026 at 8:21:29 AM
Sounds like you guys need some very basic regulations we have here in Europe - companies have to take care of folks, provide food, accommodation and replacement flights (and up to 600 euro in case of overbooking depending on distance). Not great, but worries like above are simply not on our calendar when traveling, low cost or not.Also, here in Europe, traditional aircraft carriers have been migrating their quality towards bottom end (ie Swiss not giving any beers for free even on intercontinental flights, microscopic legroom also on intercontinental) while for example Easyjet is for me at this point a high quality reliable carrier with no bullshit. Ryanair is a dumpste3r but luckily they don't serve my nearest airport well.
by kakacik
5/4/2026 at 12:58:00 PM
I think Spirit has the most comfortable seats out of all the ones you listed. Especially if you're lucky enough to have a row to yourself and get to lie across all three of them.by dec0dedab0de
5/4/2026 at 3:46:01 AM
You state an opinion, but not why for that opinion. I’m mostly stuck with Alaska or a small handful being a couple hours north of Seattle and driving to/dealing with SeaTac is not fun. In the caliber you said you wouldn’t travel includes aliegent.I’ve not flown them and stick to Alaska and the local puddle jumpers to get off the island.
by jmspring
5/4/2026 at 3:51:50 AM
Singapore Air is majority government owned and is closer to having “utility” airlines than not.by fcarraldo
5/4/2026 at 4:23:52 AM
Conversely, Air India was majority government owned, did a pretty bad job of it, and is now privately owned.by SOLAR_FIELDS
5/4/2026 at 5:08:15 AM
Yes, Singapore Airline is government owned, but I don't see how it's a utility?by eru
5/4/2026 at 1:33:11 PM
If anything it’s a tool for making people outside of Singapore like/want to do business in Singapore, so if that makes it some twisted kind of utility then I guess anything can be a utility. Not like they have domestic flights.by presentation
5/4/2026 at 4:03:59 AM
My company travel tool won't even let me book Spirit without it being flagged to HR.by RajT88
5/4/2026 at 1:19:48 PM
>> every carrier is basically the same thing but with different decalsWorse yet, you buy a ticket for carrier A, then discover that due to xyz partnership agreement you are actually flying on carrier B.
by sandworm101
5/4/2026 at 11:29:13 AM
Streets, tracks and maybe tarmacs are public utilities, not the vehicles themselves.by mr_toad
5/4/2026 at 5:42:36 AM
I think the ultimate example is the fact that most routes are run by other companies than the branded carrier; capacity providers like Endeavour and SkyWest just borrow the name and livery of the major carrier they're operating for that day.by bandrami
5/4/2026 at 2:50:01 AM
Meanwhile, first class today is not very much more than coach cost in the regulated era.Try flying Delta. It isn’t the cheapest option, but you really do get better service.
If you want to feel special, do Aeromexico first class. The checked bags are waiting for you before you can even walk there on a domestic flight.
Spirit was cheap. And if you’re poor, you need cheap. If you aren’t, buy better service and don’t complain that it’s just Greyhound on a plane.
by devilbunny
5/4/2026 at 3:23:53 AM
Am I the only one who really doesn't care what kind of service I get on a plane? I don't drink alcohol, so I don't care about that. I bring my own water bottle, so I'm good on that. The little bags of pretzels are nice, but if they stood at the front and launched them out of a t-shirt cannon, I'd be good with that.As long as the required crew of flight attendants doesn't assault me, I've never really got off a plane thinking anything at all about the service. Just "where do I need to go next" or "I'm glad to be home".
by rogerrogerr
5/4/2026 at 3:29:42 AM
When your flights are delayed/resechduled there is a world of difference. "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)by jhgorrell
5/4/2026 at 4:20:49 AM
> "Get in line" vs "you are already rebooked". (my Air Canada experince.)Which of the two was the Air Canada experience?
by alister
5/4/2026 at 4:38:32 AM
"you are already rebooked" -- they were fab.by jhgorrell
5/4/2026 at 10:32:09 AM
Same here for KLM.by spockz
5/4/2026 at 3:30:29 AM
Fair enough, I've been in those situations where the service on the ground side of the gate matters.by rogerrogerr
5/4/2026 at 10:35:40 AM
> I bring my own water bottleNot arguing against your point, but it astounds me how many airports do not have water-bottle refill stations. My home airport (SFO) does, but many in the US still do not. I feel like that sort of thing should be legally mandated, given we're not permitted to bring water through security. The paltry amount of water they give you on the flight (and at times of their choosing, not yours) is not enough to rehydrate basically anyone.
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 5:09:01 AM
It's good that you don't care, and that you can self selected into getting the cheapest fare possible. The market works.by eru
5/4/2026 at 8:54:00 AM
[dead]by baq
5/4/2026 at 4:32:09 AM
I like the EU model. The regulators set a "bare minimum" set of requirements. They have much better minimums that North America, and the fares are (still) cheaper per kilometer travelled. Also, I love the penalty system when flights are late.by throwaway2037
5/4/2026 at 10:10:26 AM
"They have much better minimums that North America"Can you enumerate these? As far as I'm aware Ryan Air is basically more "Spirit" than Spirit Airlines.
by wallst07
5/4/2026 at 12:44:15 PM
For one, the penalty system for late arrivals. It is such a big business now, that there are whole businesses setup to advise you and do the work for the cut of the penalty paid. And that penalty system applies for trains too.Also, look at Ryan Air (and Wizz Air) fares. They are consistently the lowest cost per kilometer travelled anywhere in Europe. Sure, it is like a flying bus, but it gets the job done, much cheaper than anything the US.
by throwaway2037
5/4/2026 at 2:41:39 AM
Company, always: "We need government subsidy". Then hell yes to regulating what they do.by lostlogin
5/4/2026 at 3:19:44 AM
Spirit wasn't asking for a government subsidy to get saved from bakruptcy. They were asking to be allowed to get merged with JetBlue (which could've saved them from bankruptcy) and got denied by the government. Those two things aren't the same.by filoleg
5/4/2026 at 3:26:30 AM
My understanding is that the Spirit/JetBlue merger was blocked by the Biden DOJ. Were they asking for that again, or was it a different thing that failed in negotiations with the feds recently?by rogerrogerr
5/4/2026 at 3:32:44 AM
The negotiations that were occuring directly prior to Spirit's shutdown were not merger related; but a direct government bailout.by gizmo686
5/4/2026 at 10:19:31 AM
Biden/Warren backed/forced the DOJ to sue Jetblue/Spirit to block the merger for antitrust.This doesn't seem to be a antitrust issue at all, it looks like it was one company bailing out another.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...
“Our win in court is a victory for U.S. travelers who deserve lower prices and better choices,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “We fought this case to protect consumers who, as the court recognized, ‘otherwise would have no voice.’ I am incredibly proud of the Antitrust Division’s team and our state law enforcement partners’ tireless advocacy.”
by wallst07
5/4/2026 at 5:26:56 AM
Two wrongs don't make a right.by eru
5/4/2026 at 7:08:54 AM
I know it’s frowned upon many circles, but regulation can work and do good.There is plenty of crap legislation and regulation about, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
by lostlogin
5/4/2026 at 8:26:00 AM
Yes, but be careful not to commit the 'nirvana fallacy' of comparing real world circumstances against idealised optimal regulation.by eru
5/4/2026 at 10:43:19 AM
Sure, that's fair. But often enough I see people (not accusing you of this) doing the opposite: seeing bad regulation, and drawing the conclusion that the only solution is to remove all regulation and "let the market decide".by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 12:06:49 PM
Have you ever tried to get rid of bad regulation? I have, and it is essentially impossible. De-regulation is usually the only path once the initial regulation is in place. It also only ever seems to grow in complexity and onerousness, rarely ever goes the other directin. It's like dealing with a massive legacy codebase that also has the power to throw you in jail.I'm not against regulation, I think there are areas where it's needed (privacy is a good example), but it is fire, and fire should only be played with when you really need it because it can easily grow out of control and burn things you don't intend to get burned.
by freedomben
5/4/2026 at 12:39:29 PM
Have you ever tried to regulate an unregulated industry preying upon a population?Look what it took to wrangle the cigarette industry. Look how unfettered gambling is ripping through the USA.
Or look at industries pre-regulation. Meat, building construction, medicine...
At minimum we have as much evidence that "the market" is capable of being as bad as "bad regulation."
by komali2
5/4/2026 at 3:27:21 AM
[flagged]by happyopossum
5/4/2026 at 2:46:53 AM
Even with your uncharitable framing I agree with both quotes.by mysecretaccount
5/4/2026 at 3:02:52 AM
Can you educate the rest of us by explaining your reasoning?by jmalicki
5/4/2026 at 3:31:09 AM
Breaking down complex topics into binary black and white doesnt have to be wrong. The more important part is, how much wealth they extracted and how exactly. Was it market dominance with a superior product or amoral cost externalization.The angle of treating transportation as regulated utility shifts the business focus away from profit onto providing services, which sometimes can cost more than your income. Similarly, would you close schools, because they didnt make enough money? Airlines are highly subsidized anyway, treating them as regulated utilities falls short of taking public ownership as public institutions, where services just cost money/subsidies.
by throwawayqqq11
5/4/2026 at 5:10:17 AM
> Similarly, would you close schools, because they didnt make enough money?Yes, of course. We should separate school and state.
> Airlines are highly subsidized anyway, treating them as regulated utilities falls short of taking public ownership as public institutions, where services just cost money/subsidies.
How are they highly subsidized? And where? Perhaps we should fix that, instead of adding to the problem? Two wrongs don't make a right.
by eru
5/4/2026 at 7:20:39 AM
You'd force an entire generation of children to simply not be educated?by chadgpt1
5/4/2026 at 9:13:49 AM
No, why? I didn't say that we want to outlaw education.Though I admit heavily taxing education on account of negative externalities is tempting.
by eru
5/4/2026 at 11:36:54 AM
You mean better education for uber achievers that can pay more for it? That is already the case in the US [1] for a long time now and with expectable outcomes of poverty and wasted economic and human potential, observable today. With the melting middle class, these problems will continue to grow. Are you for euthanasia already? The next step is cutting public education even more and divert these budgets into private school via school vouchers [2]. Can you guess the outcome?[1]: https://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas-school...
[2]: https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/no-accountab...
by throwawayqqq11
5/4/2026 at 7:43:59 AM
Welcome to feudalism, yay.by ahoka
5/4/2026 at 3:57:25 AM
Utilities and transportation should be public services, and they are in many places. Sometimes it works well, other times it works less well… usually because the capitalists lobby it into neglect and then say “see it’s not working / losing money let the private sector take over”.by kennywinker
5/4/2026 at 3:37:09 AM
Not op but I also agree with the framing assuming you add “and they provide a vital service” to both. If a vital service is being used to extract profits it should be regulated so that equal access to the vital service can be provided. If a vital service is being provided but cannot make money it should be regulated so that it can be sustained since it is vital.Now what is vital? Is Spirit vital? That’s the hard to define part.
by roxolotl
5/4/2026 at 3:59:16 AM
1. "We want to have this, but we don't want to pay for it!"2. "We won't pay for this, but we still want to have it!"
These are of course both fair points. Why should we "pay for" things, what's that all about? We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want, supplied by pixies.
by card_zero
5/4/2026 at 4:15:24 AM
I think they're both actually "We want to have this, but we don't want to pay too much for it just so a CEO can make 10,000x their workers and potentially ALSO still lose money."by sailfast
5/4/2026 at 5:26:00 AM
How much of the money goes to CEO vs shareholders is something they can work out between themselves.If the airline goes bankrupt, that just means that the creditors get less than they otherwise expected. That's something to haggle out between creditors and management and shareholders.
(Or do you want to imply that if the shareholders saved money on CEO compensation, they would give the money to ordinary workers?)
by eru
5/4/2026 at 11:23:50 AM
It's funny how any time something comes along suggesting consumer choice should play a role in a market economy, these types of comments come along to suggest its not their place.There's no fundamental rule of a capitalist society that consumers have to make their choices out a narrow selection of options provided by corporate oligarchies between the criteria they would prefer to compete on. As a customer, I can choose which airline I want based on whatever criteria I want. Maybe I pick it based on pay ratio between executives and average workers, maybe I pick it based on whichever has the font I like best on their homepage.
by anticorporate
5/4/2026 at 4:29:23 AM
Right, but what makes that viable? Something so topheavy ought to go the way of the Irish elk.Edit: maybe a piñata is a better metaphor. :(
by card_zero
5/4/2026 at 10:19:47 AM
Culture. Today's CEOs aren't more valuable than those of 30 or 60 years ago but the going rate is way higher, so they're paid what's expected.by nixon_why69
5/4/2026 at 7:23:31 AM
> We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want, supplied by pixies.Is this how you see roads? Are we entitled for wanting those to be paid for by the state? What about the police? Should we have to pay whenever a police officer stops a mugging -- or is the wage of that officer, too, supplied by pixies?
by achierius
5/4/2026 at 10:02:32 AM
These have remained unresolved questions, for me, for decades. When an internet pal was trying to found a libertarian (what noun should I use) locale, in Awdal in Somaliland (that detail of whether it was really in Somaliland or not was more debatable at the time), he first founded the Awdal Roads Company.https://web.archive.org/web/20040603010444/http://awdal.com/...
So obviously there are theories about how these things can be privately funded. But I can never remember the theories. Looking at that link, it was going to be toll roads. People dislike this, understandably. One problem with private roads is that you can't exactly use a competing road, which might entail moving house, or changing your plans for the day, or your job.
I have a vague notion that roads could be funded by a group of businesses that benefit from them, sort of like the W3C or a mall. Non-profit, sponsored roads, or something. (Now I'm thinking of runestones, several of which are near bridges and say "He made this bridge for his soul" or a similar statement.)
Don't ask me about police, I don't even understand crime and punishment, really.
I should maybe add that I meant "We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want" somewhat unironically. I feel that way, the same as anyone else. The difficulty, as observed up the thread, is in working out what's natural, or vital, or wanted and feasible. There are no pixies to magically know the answers, to my regret, only governments, and they only pretend to know. By buying and selling we can almost figure out the answers, contingently and approximately, but a lot goes wrong with that, including the friction of having to do it all the time, and "rent-seeking", whatever defines that really.
by card_zero
5/4/2026 at 12:21:03 PM
You’re missing the vital framing. You’re welcome to strawman the strawman but the respond with yet a third: “I’m not able to pay for it and will die as a result”. I’d prefer to live in a society where we avoid as many situations like that as possible. It’s the primary purpose of a government and a nation. Solving the problems of aggregating the required parts? Again it’s why we work together and it’s the point of government to solve that problem.Good regulation doesn’t completely avoid market mechanisms it tries to tame the more brutal ones in order to maximize return to society. The roads argument is important because without roads we do not have any trade. So by collectively and somewhat proportionally, to use and income, managing the cost of road it makes everything else the market does possible.
by roxolotl
5/4/2026 at 12:54:20 PM
So you're saying it's all about the concept "vital" and I should pay that more heed? But I don't think the term "vital" solves the problem of information. Natural, vital, optimal, feasible, wanted, it's all the same question, which is, uh, "how should we specifically cooperate," I guess. Government just knows less about this than the people involved do. Hayek yek yek.Maybe you mean that in desperate situations - such as working out what to do about roads - we might as well resort to government. We do, so I guess you're right.
by card_zero
5/4/2026 at 10:22:14 AM
Lots of roads in the USA are built by private developers, then they're deeded over to the municipality for "free" so its on taxpayers to do maintenance.by nixon_why69
5/4/2026 at 12:56:18 PM
> and "rent-seeking", whatever defines that really."The act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating public policy or economic conditions without creating new wealth." This is in opposition to profit-seeking, where "entities seek to extract value by engaging in mutually beneficial transactions." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
Friend, with respect, the mental blocks you're coming up against regarding roads, police, and resource distribution, within an American libertarian framework, are outlining exactly why American libertarianism (unregulated capitalism) is an untenable ideology.
Private roads don't make sense in capitalist framing because there's no possibility of competition - no market for a free hand to move in. Furthermore, there's ethical issues around the fact that roads won't be built to people who aren't as instrumentally valuable to capitalism, which is in opposition to the idea that all humans are equally intrinsically valuable. In plain words: poor people won't get roads built to them, won't be able to work, will get poorer. This is bad, and if you want to just be selfish about it, will lead to crime and social discohesion.
This argument extends to all the resources governments typically involve themselves in: electricity, sewage, water. We have direct evidence that when they try to privatize these things, it goes horribly wrong: see, the American healthcare industry, or, what's happening to the UK as it privatizes sewage. See the Texas privatized power grid.
All capitalist entities (corporations) are simple algorithms: Make profit go up. We like to tell ourselves that making profit go up is possibly only through mutually beneficial trades, aka the aformentioned profit-seeking, however that's not true in practice. The most profitable activity is slavery driven labor, and the most profitable state for a corporation to be in is monopoly. All optimized capitalist behavior selects for and trends towards that activity and that state, and literally the only way to stop this is through establishing some kind of hierarchy that allows for the limiting of corporate behavior - governments, and regulations.
Any example you give of a corporation in capitalism not trending towards slavery or monopoly has one of several explanations. 1. It's regulated, 2. It's led by someone who ethically doesn't want to trend towards slavery or monopoly, or isn't intelligent enough to do so. In the case of 2, that company will eventually be surpassed and consumed by someone with less morals, more intelligence, and more capital (more power).
> "We should just naturally have the natural things that we naturally want" somewhat unironically. I feel that way, the same as anyone else. The difficulty, as observed up the thread, is in working out what's natural, or vital, or wanted and feasible.
I completely agree, and there are other ways to do this other than capitalism, regulated or otherwise. I strongly recommend the most cited economist in history: Karl Marx. Peter Kropotkin is also very good, "The Conquest of Bread" is a great speculation of alternative systems.
by komali2
5/4/2026 at 3:54:12 AM
The extremes of capitalism have a negative impact on people’s lives.The first scenario it harms us by under-serving and scammy practices, the second scenario it’s over-extractive and funneling money from the many to the few.
by kennywinker
5/4/2026 at 3:29:26 AM
Companies like John-Deere should be able to survive without abusing their downstream customers. Many farmers are importing tractors from China because they're cheap and not hostile to repair like JD is. Some people might call it a "smart business model" to sell interdependent services, but in the long-term it's suicide.Whether or not you solve this through regulation, that's up to you.
by bigyabai
5/4/2026 at 4:07:47 AM
It would be nice if companies could commit suicide faster, instead of dragging it out over several decades.by card_zero
5/4/2026 at 7:21:45 AM
[dead]by chadgpt1
5/4/2026 at 11:59:06 AM
Company offers a service that is considered essential to function in society, and the overwhelming majority of people _must_ pay for as if it were a tax: "this seems like something generally useful to the public! They need to be a regulated utility!"by Humorist2290
5/4/2026 at 12:36:05 PM
Changing it to a utility? Like Bart in sf? We should have Bart authority run the airline!by threethirtytwo
5/4/2026 at 2:41:13 AM
Company is valuable to us as a society in a fundamental way but is fucking us up in all sorts of unique ways: They might need to be a regulated utility.by hilariously
5/4/2026 at 5:53:32 AM
Hopefully we can regulate them like California electricity and let one airline be active per airport and let them charge more than triple national rates.by parineum
5/4/2026 at 1:28:28 PM
I am not trying to be flip - I am just saying the two sides are not bad regulation ripping us off and bad private companies ripping us off, we can instead do good things and attempt to do them well, we can hold people accountable and have integrity; these are choices we make every day.by hilariously
5/4/2026 at 3:12:28 AM
Okay, but the process of underwriting an airline now somehow involves operating a successful credit card company. Which, you know, are not typically successful based upon operating excellence but upon rapaciousness of interest rates and merchant fees.I'm not sure it's great to have important infrastructure operated this way. Other than regulation do you see a way out?
by themafia
5/4/2026 at 11:24:57 AM
No airline operates a credit card company. They just put their name on a card and sell miles at a discount in bulk to credit card companies like Chase or Citi.by sgerenser
5/4/2026 at 8:48:49 AM
Bottom line: there never really is any free market. Because it doesn't work.by the_gipsy
5/4/2026 at 2:31:08 AM
Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routes, but it's still a service that many people depend on (either directly or by the indirect economic impact of travel). It's a genuine force multiplier that is unaffordable without being subsidized; making it a utility would just shift the subsidy from credit card points programs to the government.by striking
5/4/2026 at 3:24:22 AM
> Because the amount anyone would actually pay is substantially below cost for most routesThis is absolutely not true. If all the airlines were prohibited from making money with anything else (miles, credit cards) then airfares would rise across the board and there would still be plenty of demand. Not as much, but still plenty.
by crazygringo
5/4/2026 at 2:35:41 AM
If airlines didn’t exist, people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years. There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode) that makes it worthy of subsidy .by appreciatorBus
5/4/2026 at 4:10:23 AM
Listen, I'm the type of fella who'd gladly take the Amtrak from the East Bay to Portland, 18 hours each way, and I'm telling you even I'd do so only as a novelty. If I actually had somewhere to be, spending basically an entire day on a train would be a non-starter. And that's just on the same coast! If I had to take the Amtrak back east to see my family for the holidays I would probably just not go. My travel to the other coast (not to mention back to the country where I was born, an additional ocean's worth of distance) would only be worth the trip for like a life change or a death in the family.I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so, judging by both Amtrak ridership statistics and the cost ineffective nature of my attempts to travel on it.
by striking
5/4/2026 at 4:58:26 AM
I didn’t say anything about trains or Amtrak?People and goods have travelled around the world long for thousands of years before air air travel and train travel. And people have made decisions above the trade-offs of travel to see family for thousands of years before air travel and train travel.
If air travel was unavailable or unsubsidized, people would continue to make those decisions and life would go on.
by appreciatorBus
5/4/2026 at 10:49:55 AM
> People and goods have travelled around the world long for thousands of years before air air travel and train travel.Yes, and it really, really sucked back then. And the number of people who could actually do that travel was much, much smaller than today. Air travel (and train travel, to some extent, though it mostly sucks in the US) has enabled people to travel around the globe who never would have been able to in the past.
What a bizarre argument.
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 10:48:11 AM
There absolutely is something magical about air travel! We can get places much faster and much safer than we could before. I live in California, and another part of my family lives in Maryland. Are you saying that when I want to visit my family, instead of spending 5-6 hours in a metal tube in the air, I should spend a week (or more) either driving or taking various trains and buses?If air travel didn't exist, I likely wouldn't move around the globe at all. Hell, I wouldn't move around the country even.
In the US, roads are mostly publicly-owned (the ultimate subsidy). Local bus and rail transit is usually also publicly-owned, though when it isn't, it's done through public-private partnership and/or subsidy. Regional and long-distance rail is subsidized. Why shouldn't air travel follow the pattern?
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 12:09:27 PM
> people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years.Indeed! We don't need air travel when we have perfectly good teams of oxen and covered wagons. We could even hunt and forage for our food along the way to save some money!
by freedomben
5/4/2026 at 2:49:41 AM
When something is that drastically different, it becomes different in kind. For example, if you have high network latency, you cannot jam (play live music) with friends remotely. If you have low latency, you can. Just because the difference is in a single value (I.e. net speed) doesn’t mean it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s possible. Air travel makes the kind of business, shipping, and attendance possible that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, because our collective lifetimes and risk tolerances are limited.by hakunin
5/4/2026 at 7:41:12 AM
I think you're saying that there are businesses that rely on cheap air transportation that are very valuable, but at the same time couldn't afford higher air fees.But that's a contradiction. If they are valuable, their customers would pay more for their services - that's the definition of valuable. And if their customers would pay more, they could afford higher air fees.
by rendaw
5/4/2026 at 12:31:39 PM
No, all I’m saying is that air travel is so different than any other kind of travel, that it is very special, and borderline magical. Saying something like “nothing magical about air travel, things and people would still travel around the globe” is very reductive. I’m not giving my opinion on subsidies.by hakunin
5/4/2026 at 5:27:47 AM
That doesn't mean we should subsidise it.by eru
5/4/2026 at 5:52:26 AM
I’m responding to a claim that there’s nothing “magical” about air travel. It literally enables things otherwise impossible.by hakunin
5/4/2026 at 3:23:23 AM
You can't think of a single situation where an airline route is infinitely better and probably the only viable option ?Btw you don't need to completely disregard other modes of transport to appreciate bus :)
by devsda
5/4/2026 at 5:05:38 AM
Buses and planes are both great! Both have advantages and disadvantages, and different cost structures. I trust people to make their own decisions about trade-offs for travel that work for them and their situation. When we arbitrarily pick one and shovel free money, land or infrastructure toward it, we are putting a thumb on the scale and depriving people of the power to make their own decisions.Of course, we can argue that there are network effects or natural monopoly effects for fixed infrastructure like roads and rails, and thus there must be a public role. However policy rarely seems to remain at this reasonable position and instead quickly expands into something altogether different.
by appreciatorBus
5/4/2026 at 10:56:46 AM
> When we arbitrarily pick oneAren't all modes of transportation in the US either subsidized or public-owned to some degree? We haven't arbitrarily picked one; we picked them all.
Air travel is maybe the least subsidized, though? Essential Air Service is probably the main thing? Long-distance bus like Greyhound is only minimally subsidized too.
But local transit (bus & rail), and regional and long-distance rail are all subsidized or publicly owned in the US. Most roads are publicly-owned, either locally or by the federal government. Long-distance bus and rail are actually unusual in how little they're subsidized.
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 5:29:00 AM
If they are so much better, why do they need subsidies?by eru
5/4/2026 at 11:13:00 AM
This line of thinking assumes being profitable is the only thing that makes something desirable or not.by folkrav
5/4/2026 at 6:18:01 AM
Which transportation mode gets no direct or indirect subsides?by victorbjorklund
5/4/2026 at 8:24:54 AM
Net or gross?by eru
5/4/2026 at 3:11:45 AM
Do you oppose the federal highway system (or rail systems) as well?by 1shooner
5/4/2026 at 5:00:56 AM
Basically yes.by appreciatorBus
5/4/2026 at 5:28:43 AM
I guess at least when they are given away for free or severely underpriced to the user.by eru
5/4/2026 at 10:52:38 AM
Right, the externalities of those road systems aren't really paid for properly, by anyone.But that's hard to do, because for many people/uses, they have to use those roads to get done what they need to do. The alternatives (like high speed rail) just largely don't exist in the US, or are painfully sub-par.
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 10:51:07 AM
Ah, you're one of those people who think we shouldn't have nice things. Got it.(And no, the market often does not provide.)
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 1:01:49 PM
> people and goods would continue to move around the globe as they have done for thousands of years.Would love to compare the economic throughput in raw dollars of the Oregon trail vs a single flight route.
Don't forget that the whole point of transportation under capitalism is enabling and stimulating economic activity. So sure, get rid of the airlines if you want to collapse a bunch of economic activity. Personally I'd hope for it to get replaced by high speed rail, but kinda hard to do that when economic activity is highly depressed.
by komali2
5/4/2026 at 10:10:48 AM
Not advocating for subsidies, but there are things like patient transports to hospitals, where speed is a factor.by carlosjobim
5/4/2026 at 8:15:50 AM
> There’s nothing magical about air travel (or any other transport mode)There kind of is. I can make it from here in Bucharest to Paris in about 3 hours by plane, while by car I'll need about 3 days (i.e. two sleepovers till I get there). This is magical to me. To say nothing of places like the Arabian peninsula or, I don't know, the Indian subcontinent, I wouldn't even think of getting there by car as it is close to impossible (at least when it comes to a land-route to India), but taking a plane is a 6-hour flight from nearby Istanbul to Delhi.
by paganel
5/4/2026 at 2:55:24 AM
> the amount anyone would actually pay is [...]That's.... like a pretty shocking erasure of the idea of a demand curve given the forum here.
To be glib: no, that's not how it works. Increase the price and fewer people will fly, but the demand won't drop to zero. Decrease it and you make less money per ticket but the size of the market is bigger. At some point there is a local maximum, to which the market seeks.
But conditions change occasionally and the equivalent supply curve is moving rapidly because of the oil shock (i.e. it's more expensive to put planes in the air to service tickets you already sold). And things like the mess with Spirit are what happens when the market readjusts: the rest of the industry will (probably) backfill some of the lost capacity, but not all of it, and prices will (probably) rise a bit to a new equilibrium.
by ajross
5/4/2026 at 7:56:15 AM
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.
by thrance
5/4/2026 at 10:24:32 AM
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.by carlosjobim
5/4/2026 at 1:03:33 PM
> every working citizen could easily afford more expensive airline ticketsYou mean every laboring slave.
No free market means corporations are allowed to engage in slavery, chattel or otherwise. Let's be honest about what a free market actually is. Factory towns, lifetime debt bondage.
by komali2
5/4/2026 at 1:40:13 PM
Ah yes, thank you for correcting me. That is exactly what I meant.by carlosjobim
5/4/2026 at 10:57:51 AM
That's a really cute idealized world, but it wouldn't work in practice. The structure of free-market capitalism all but precludes it.by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 11:24:32 AM
The poster I replied to was already in the territory of idealized worlds. You can't just look at one side without looking at the other.by carlosjobim
5/4/2026 at 11:17:54 AM
When a necessary service is pushed towards being unprofitable / breakeven due to "free market pressures", it probably should have some kind of backstop to ensure the service doesn't completely fold - because it is necessary. I think the suggestion to treat it like a utility was trying to emphasize this.I'd also feel similar I'd my primary water, electricity, or internet provider was on the brink of failing due to "free market pressures".
by SecretDreams
5/4/2026 at 12:43:40 PM
Consumer air travel is not a necessary service, though.by nilamo
5/4/2026 at 12:53:56 PM
How do you feel about high speed internet vs dial up?by SecretDreams
5/4/2026 at 4:47:12 AM
Airlines basically were a regulated utility until they were unregulated to the point where normal people can barely fit in a seat and there’s basically no amenities anymore. It used to be kind of nice to fly. That’s laughable now.by willio58
5/4/2026 at 5:30:08 AM
Now you have to option to pay as much as you used to (inflation adjusted) for a ticket, and get first class service with all the leg room you want.by eru
5/4/2026 at 10:59:52 AM
On the other side of that coin, when airlines were heavily regulated, most people couldn't afford to fly at all.The "regulation vs. no regulation" stance is the wrong way to look at it. Airlines are still regulated, of course. Maybe some of the regulations we do have are unnecessary, some of the regulations we got rid of we should really bring back, and perhaps there are others that we never had that we need.
by kelnos
5/4/2026 at 1:04:25 PM
We can't be sure whether cost came down because of removing regulation or improvements in technology. We can only guess.by komali2
5/4/2026 at 10:58:25 AM
What other things changed besides regulation?My guess is MANY more people fly and are able to afford to fly vs before. There are probably many others things that changed.
It's also very nice to fly.... in first class.
by wallst07
5/4/2026 at 9:10:12 AM
This is like saying that movie theaters make money on popcorn, so they should just start selling popcorn and exit the movie business entirely. The reason those loyalty programs work is because of the flights.For a much deeper dive on this, see https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/gary-leff-fre...
(there's a well-formatted text transcript)
by miki123211
5/4/2026 at 6:17:01 AM
And then you have RyanAir in Europe with no credit card or loyalty program offerings. They did have a loyalty subscription program, but it cost more than it generated.Best not to generalize.
by cromka
5/4/2026 at 9:20:54 AM
And Ryanair is the largest airline in Europe! And one of the largest in the world.by fundatus
5/4/2026 at 11:17:19 AM
tbf, Ryanair generates a third of its revenues from other ancillary offerings (including kickbacks from insurers and car hire firms as well as its legendary fines and fees) so it does fit the general pattern of it being unprofitable to simply sell tickets in competitive markets...by notahacker
5/4/2026 at 1:04:28 PM
Those other companies do too So it's not distorting the competition IMO. If none of them had kickbacks then the prices would be overall higher but people would still fly because most of us don't just fly for the hell of it but because we have places to go.by wolvoleo
5/4/2026 at 1:15:49 PM
Nobody claimed it was distorting the competition.I pointed out the simple fact that Ryanair can't be considered a counterexample to airlines tending not to make money on flights since it relies on upsells to make a profit.
by notahacker
5/4/2026 at 7:25:13 AM
[dead]by chadgpt1
5/4/2026 at 1:35:32 PM
> Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them.Enough money for who? One person has a pay package north of $30 million.
by skinfaxi
5/4/2026 at 4:35:42 AM
They make a lot of money from loyalty programs and credit cards, but the legacy airlines do make money on flying alone. The margin they make on that is razor thin, but they do make money from the core product.Spirit was designed to be ultra low cost, which attracts flyers that are much more price sensitive. Higher Jet A costs means higher ticket prices, which means lost customers, which means lost revenue. Pulling a JetBlue and adding higher tier product offerings to attract the business travelers that _actually_ makes money for airlines would've required an overhaul of their entire business, which they couldn't afford to do.
I agree that Spirit will be chopped up by whoever buys them. It happened to Braniff, PanAm, and a whole bunch of other airlines that weren't thrown a lifeline.
(JetBlue tried to acquire Spirit to prevent this outcome, but the acquisition didn't pass antitrust. Everyone knew that that acquisiton failing was a death sentence to Spirit, but it was what it was.)
by nunez
5/4/2026 at 5:30:54 AM
> I agree that Spirit will be chopped up by whoever buys them. It happened to Braniff, PanAm, and a whole bunch of other airlines that weren't thrown a lifeline.But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If the company is worth more to the market and society when sold as pieces, so be it.
by eru
5/4/2026 at 1:22:46 AM
Or they could actually charge ticket prices that cover the cost of doing business and stop treating their passengers like a it's a time-share sales pitch the whole way.by gtowey
5/4/2026 at 1:47:04 AM
They can't do this most of the time because for most of the year on most routes, supply outstrips demand (i.e., many/most flights on most airlines fly at least a little bit empty, often significantly empty – overall load factors are about 80-85%). They have to charge fares that customers will be willing to pay, even if that means losing money on a given flight. They can only charge profitable fares on the routes and times of year when demand surges (peak routes, holiday periods, major events). They have to keep their network capacity high enough to satisfy the peak demand, but for most of the year and most of the network, demand is lower, so they have to settle for break-even or loss-minimization. (For the record, I co-founded a flight search startup that became a fare optimization platform.)by tomhow
5/4/2026 at 2:39:26 AM
Was that Flightfox? If so, I loved using it, helped me save so much money but also time :)It sounds like there’s a problem with having too many flights that are barely full and hence unprofitable. AFAIK the federal gov spends significant money subsidising many “small airport” routes even if they’re barely used.
by dannyw
5/4/2026 at 6:07:57 AM
The EAS Program (Essential Air Services) is the US Government program which subsidizes routes to small communities of you're curious.by Karrot_Kream
5/4/2026 at 7:26:10 AM
[dead]by chadgpt1
5/4/2026 at 3:43:42 AM
Southwest used to do this, but then somehow got a CEO that burnt it all down instead of raising ticket prices by $20-30.Before them Alaska Air was similar, and is now similarly bad.
Having the customers actually own the airline seems like a reasonable approach. The trick is kicking all the assholes off the board, so they can’t fire leadership for treating customers decently while turning a sustainable profit.
by hedora
5/4/2026 at 1:07:03 PM
True, Alaska skimped on maintenance so much they killed a plane full of passengers that should never have died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261I can't fathom how this airline was allowed to keep existing.
by wolvoleo
5/4/2026 at 1:23:51 AM
Sounds like a good way to lose all your customers to the other airlines that charge less.by acheron
5/4/2026 at 3:11:21 AM
Yup, and this is exacerbated by how services like Google Flights work. There's little visibility into any kind of "quality" metric, but prices are always front and center. So why would you optimize based on anything else?by AlexandrB
5/4/2026 at 3:47:44 AM
If the lowest prices cause insolvency for the company, then let your competitors go bankrupt to win in the long run?by asvitkine
5/4/2026 at 8:34:45 AM
I guess some of the legacy carriers are now drinking champagne since they got rid of one of the more aggressive ULCC competitors.However, if you wait till your competition goes broke, you need to ensure you survive long enough and stay big enough so you don't get bought. That's not exactly easy.
by iSnow
5/4/2026 at 1:25:29 AM
Consumers only look at bottom line. There is basically two markets with airlines, higher end market with credit cards and premium seating; lower end where consumer solely looks at ticket price.by stackskipton
5/4/2026 at 2:22:08 AM
A huge number of businesses survive on whales, it's becoming really apparent. I'm kinda surprised how common it is.I wonder if this will be the next "market" to exploit if ad revenue ever dies down too much, or if it's one that's always been there, and I've simply never been a part of.
by kulahan
5/4/2026 at 7:43:49 AM
this is a direct result of the shrinking middle class and the greater concentration of wealth. this is the canary in the coal mineby cybercatgurrl
5/4/2026 at 1:34:52 AM
They do, it’s just barely enough to cover the cost of doing business and volatility.by lotsofpulp
5/4/2026 at 1:50:51 AM
> "Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments."If that's the case then how RyanAir survived and is thriving?
by gordon_freeman
5/4/2026 at 1:55:31 AM
It isn't the case. It's a simplistic gloss on a complex finance outcome.Some flights make money.
Some flights lose money.
Some finance structures make money while looking like losses to acrue tax benefits for other activities.
Sometimes the money is being made by holding companies not operating companies. Sometimes the assets are worth more as spares than operating.
All companies are complex. I do not think "flights don't make money" is true for all airlines, all flights.
by ggm
5/4/2026 at 1:56:33 AM
Because people take "airline X makes $50k profit, and makes $55k off of the credit card, so therefore it makes all money from credit cards" which is true from a certain accounting point of view, and also entirely false, in that it's all accounting tricks and the credit card would be worthless without an airline.by bombcar
5/4/2026 at 1:08:26 PM
Credit cards aren't really a thing in Europe and even where people might have them they don't make money. There's no kickback schemes, cashback etc.by wolvoleo
5/4/2026 at 8:12:51 AM
Bag fees and other ways to get passengers to pay above the headline price. Like this kind of thing: https://hallofshame.design/ryanair-when-every-page-is-a-dark... and https://darkpatterns.uxp2.com/pattern/ryanair-travel-insuran...by red_admiral
5/4/2026 at 2:50:08 AM
Not to mention that loyalty programs and credit card bonuses don't exist in Europe.by addandsubtract
5/4/2026 at 3:52:35 AM
This isn't true. European airlines do have loyalty programs with "miles".Air France, British Airways, Finnair, Turkish Airlines, just to name a few, all have miles programs.
They just aren't tied to credit cards because the EU caps interchange fees to 0.3%, so there simply isn't enough money to have a meaningful credit card point system.
by Petersipoi
5/4/2026 at 8:55:15 AM
RyanAir notoriously uses cheaper secondary airports.by the_gipsy
5/4/2026 at 3:49:33 AM
Because it's nonsense. It's from some YouTube video that went viral a few years ago.by roncesvalles
5/4/2026 at 4:33:56 AM
Because their social media strategy is fireby altmanaltman
5/4/2026 at 2:07:08 AM
Airlines were heavily regulated in the US and essentially operated as government contractors until 1978 [1]by 4k0hz
5/4/2026 at 4:22:24 AM
Yeah and it was an absurdly expensive activity limited to rich peopleby tt24
5/4/2026 at 1:16:18 PM
You say that, but flying economy was much better back then. Less fights, more legroom. You've got to fly business today to get close.by jollyllama
5/4/2026 at 6:20:47 AM
And most families only had a single car prior to 1980.What's your point?
Did airlines get cheaper due to deregulation or because technology and engineering made operating them cheaper?
by bsder
5/4/2026 at 11:22:09 AM
Or as simple as incomes crept up and airlines reduced some amenities - both allowing for increased ridership which helped to reduce per head costs.by SecretDreams
5/4/2026 at 3:49:37 AM
As I understand it, everything about the industry was better back then too.Case in point: Old Perry Mason shows where characters regularly drive to the airport, pay for a ticket and get on a plane. Flying was actually faster than driving back then, even when measured by time between deciding to leave and arriving at destination!
(Yes, tickets used to cost a bit more. Whatever. Figure in the price for camping in the airport for 4-5 hours, and then tell me the current system is cheaper!)
by hedora
5/4/2026 at 3:55:59 AM
"Yes, tickets used to cost a bit more"Tickets used to cost 4-8x what they cost now, depending on route. It wasn't a couple percent extra. A lot of what made flying seem like such a glamorous activity was that everyone but the upper classes was excluded.
An economy class round trip from the US to Japan in the 1970s with Pan-Am was $8,900 in 2026 dollars. About $15,000 if you flew first class.
by missedthecue
5/4/2026 at 4:07:02 AM
And for comparison, today you can do an economy round-trip flight with Delta Air Lines for roughly $1.6k (SEA-HND). A Delta One flight is roughly $8.5k. That's the apples-to-apples comparison.Deregulation also allowed international carriers to sell to us too. An ANA round-trip on economy class is a couple hundred dollars cheaper. Their business class is similarly cheaper than Delta One.
Air travel is so much cheaper than it was back then that it is affordable for most people to take one international trip a year if they really want to. Even to exotic places in Asia or Southern Europe.
by Conan_Kudo
5/4/2026 at 4:23:06 AM
It would be prohibitively expensive for poor people to fly. I understand why you wouldn’t care about that, but some people are poor and still need to fly if you can believe it.by tt24
5/4/2026 at 7:28:14 AM
[dead]by chadgpt1
5/4/2026 at 5:54:42 AM
Was it cheaper or more expensive for the public to fly on them during that time or after deregulation?by victorbjorklund
5/4/2026 at 1:03:12 PM
I kinda doubt that. Ryanair make money and they don't have a loyalty program and companies in Europe don't make money off credit cards.by wolvoleo
5/4/2026 at 2:43:43 AM
Both Southwest, but also Ryanair are profitable. Totally possible to make money off flights.But you have to follow the same model: use cheaper airports, a single modern aircraft type to simplify operations, high turnaround speed, charge a lot for extras.
by whazor
5/4/2026 at 3:14:18 AM
It’s not enough to “make a profit”.Southwest has 30B in assets and makes $441M in profit. Like most airlines it’s a miracle of modern economics and should practically be considered a charity or a nonprofit. You would make more in treasuries or corporate bonds.
by oceanplexian
5/4/2026 at 4:36:57 AM
Their last earnings report says about 17B in non-cash assets with about 848M in profit based on those assets (assuming that the quarterly profit x 4 is a reasonable assumption). So where are your numbers from?by HWR_14
5/4/2026 at 4:27:00 AM
Wow… at 1.5% annual return wouldn’t they be better off just renting those assets (aircraft) to other airlines?!by rhplus
5/4/2026 at 1:02:30 PM
The majority of airliners are on 'dry lease' to their respective airlines to begin with.by sithadmin
5/4/2026 at 3:18:59 AM
Corporate bonds won't take you to Disneyland.by Finnucane
5/4/2026 at 1:34:24 PM
They could pay Trump to gid rid of some of the more costly FAA regulations. Do you know how much it costs to train a pilot these days? We have this little thing called autopilot now! Put Musk on the job, he'll straighten out those crybabies and their "safety first" ethos.by tencentshill
5/4/2026 at 3:52:08 AM
Ryanair moves the most passengers of any airline in the world and doesn't have any cobranded credit cards or loyalty program.by missedthecue
5/4/2026 at 4:21:09 AM
Ryanair is 3rd by passengers and 7th by passenger miles, according to this wiki page.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_airlines_in_the_world
Obviously their model is different to the big American carriers. Perhaps there’s something about the homogeneity of the US domestic market compared to the EU market that favors loyalty based airlines versus budget airlines.
by rhplus
5/4/2026 at 5:36:48 AM
The comments here seem to suggest that the loyalty program funded with credit card margins are to blame for the difference.It suggests we'd be better of eliminating the absurdly high hidden taxes paid to the credit card companies, that in turn act to gamify the business. In the end they raise the cost of doing business, for virtually no benefit at all. It's a monopoly extracting as much wealth they can get away with.
The question at the heart of this: How can "the shining light on a hill" be so stupid? It's digging its own demise.
by childintime
5/4/2026 at 1:24:21 PM
some do - see RyanAir in Europe.yeah in the US airlines are fintechs.
by dzonga
5/4/2026 at 5:04:58 AM
> Fundamental problem: Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments. They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long ago, but loyalty program revenue saved them.I don't get it. Why should they have been turned into utilities? Just because the current iteration loses money?
Please be aware that airline pricing is endogenous. That means, it's not set from the outside, but a reaction to market conditions and feeds back into market conditions. Eg airlines might be on the edge of profitability at time X, but when at time Y fuel prices drop a bit (or rise a bit) that doesn't mean that airline will suddenly all make lots of money (or all go bankrupt): the pricing of their product will adjust.
That doesn't only go for fuel prices, but also for loyalty programme revenue. If such revenue is available and competition is fierce, then prices will go down until airline can just about stay afloat after taking that extra revenue into account.
> Private equity will likely sell the company for parts.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
by eru
5/4/2026 at 3:44:34 AM
> Flights don't make moneyMember-owned co-ops don't need to make money. Structuring an airline as a member-owned co-op is not a fundamentally-stupid idea.
by JumpCrisscross
5/4/2026 at 2:00:38 AM
If airlines stopped offering flights then their loyalty programs would not be useful.Even in this "airlines as point program companies" view of the world, flights don't make money in the same way that electricity going into data centers don't make money. It's a place where you have major costs and you want to try and gamify it, but at the end of the day it's pretty necessary for successful operations!
Consider why airline points even work as a model in the first place! Airlines have blackout dates and don't offer every seat in a plane for points because _they can make money selling a seat for more than what the points are worth to them_.
by rtpg
5/4/2026 at 1:40:56 AM
The company is not forced to sell immediately to whoever offers it money, they can sell themselves off for parts.I heavily doubt PE firms are interested here as there is no potential for growth or a multiple. Spirit's assets are mainly their fleet, there are like 4 maybe 5 people who could buy, of these 2-3 are facing similar financial crises.
In the US I think nobody except United can afford to make a move, more likely some Asian airlines will move; many have grown and have route demand they can't service due to lack of aircraft. If you fly to Asia often you'll note that much of the time Asian airlines have to operate an aircraft from a US airline.
by cuuupid
5/4/2026 at 2:32:44 AM
Spirit's assets are almost entirely their slots at ORD, EWR, LAX and LGA. They don't many of their planes.by selectodude
5/4/2026 at 5:58:20 AM
Huh? What do you mean? They and Wizz air are public companies. Nothing would stop them from selling their planes etc.by victorbjorklund
5/4/2026 at 4:38:39 AM
Does this imply that most people who sign up for frequent flier programs end up losing money in the long run, rather than benefitting from them?by arcastroe
5/4/2026 at 5:08:00 AM
They can probably make money on business class travelers who spend their companies money on flights which aren't necessarily the cheapest but can reap the rewards for their own personal benefit.by kqr2
5/4/2026 at 3:42:00 AM
> They basically should have turned into regulated utilities long agoThey used to be. Read up on "Civil Aeronautics Board".
by Animats
5/4/2026 at 2:26:54 AM
Famous Richard Branson quote:"If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline."
by aninteger
5/4/2026 at 9:40:26 AM
Bullshit. Very few airlines even have points systems.by MagicMoonlight
5/4/2026 at 1:31:59 AM
Sounds like the industry is extremely efficient. Why would we want to turn this into regulated utilities?by wat10000
5/4/2026 at 1:36:35 AM
sounds like it's not efficient at all? it's barely functional as a business and is only surviving on grifty addons?by ajkjk
5/4/2026 at 2:17:10 AM
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?by avarun
5/4/2026 at 7:31:05 AM
[dead]by chadgpt1
5/4/2026 at 3:22:51 AM
"Perfect efficiency comes at the point of collapse"Don't know where I read that, but it seems apropos.
by emmelaich
5/4/2026 at 6:00:22 AM
It’s perfectly competitive. There is no rent seeking on the core.by victorbjorklund
5/4/2026 at 11:30:50 AM
It’s highly functional. It’s barely profitable. That’s good for the customers.by wat10000
5/4/2026 at 4:25:43 AM
Good? It’s dirt cheapby tt24
5/4/2026 at 1:44:13 AM
Because efficiency is not the end goal of life.by lazyasciiart
5/4/2026 at 6:01:30 AM
So the end goal is making poor people pay more for the flights home on holidays so that the investors can have higher returns?by victorbjorklund
5/4/2026 at 11:31:35 AM
How about transportation?by wat10000
5/4/2026 at 2:47:04 AM
Sadly only expensive because the unions bleed the companies dry.by exabrial
5/4/2026 at 6:03:19 AM
Not really true. If over night all salaries in all airlines would drop by say 20% overnight. Then yes, they would make a lot of money very shorterm. But then same thing would happen. Competition where they all would lower prices towards where they again have the same margins.by victorbjorklund
5/4/2026 at 1:15:44 PM
Lol.Be sure to actually go read the read the contracts and what they contain.
by exabrial