Target Acquired

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Inequality has gotten so much worse that rich people don't even fly in the same planes as us anymore.
That's going to have perverse incentives on airplane safety too. They have no reason to update their laws if peasant airplane doors falling off becomes common.
- I have a friend that is a sales manager for private planes. He said business exploded during the pandemic and then never slowed down. This despite flights being eye-wateringly expensive (like, 20k for one-way is a great deal, because you managed to book an empty leg.)
  
  20k one way is expensive?
- Perception has also become completely warped.
  I was out with some guys last night and one of them was talking about a PJ for a golf trip. I didn't know what he was talking about so I kept quiet. I used to travel extensively for work, usually on the company plane so I've spent a good amount of time on planes all by myself with the pilots, so my Buddy who invited me to this outing started asking me questions about what it's like flying private and I figured out pj means private jet.
  The guy talking about using a private jet is a fireman. I'm sure he makes a nice living but what fucking world do public service employees use or even think they should be using a private plane to go golfing? I don't even get the idea of flying somewhere specifically to go golfing, that seems like rich people shit, hiring a damn plane for it? How the hell did that even become a consideration?
  Eta. I'm not shitting on public service employees. This guy probably makes more money than me and for sure has a better retirement plan LoL. I'm pointing out that this guy doesn't work in finance, real estate or an industry that you might more typically expect to be familiar and using private services along those lines.
  
  We were looking at a family vacation for Christmas instead of all the different households just getting together at one of the houses. At between 12 and 16 people (depending on the company, destination, and package) it was less expensive to charter a jet than purchase individual tickets.
- You think airlines don't make money on economy class? That's the vast majority of their income. Of course they're going to serve their largest customer base.
  
  You would think that, but that’s not the case
- There are considerable safety concerns regarding private jets, mostly down to the quality of the pilots. At the bigger airlines, pilots are unionized and have consistent schedules they work and routes and aircraft they fly. It’s reliable work and where most pilots (even military) end up.
  Meanwhile private aviation needs to be flexible and easy to set up. Contrary to your comment this is the sector that you can usually expect to find more unscrupulous operations and pilots who are basically just Some Guy. Most of the near miss accidents lately have involved private planes (though that can often be attributed to problems in the ATC network).
  As for the doors that’s more of a Boeing specific problem, they’ve made a lot of questionable business decisions in recent years and this is the fallout of that. Airbus planes don’t seem to have this problem, and customers seem to be making it clear that they would like their planes to work thank you very much.
- Get on the 50 marine, we're coming into a hot LZ!!
- They never have
  
  No. I was on a plane with Mitt Romney while he was running for president. He flew with everyone else. The idea of private jets is absolutely us coming to needing to sell something better and private for the wealthy which means more waste and less attention, and wirse conditions.
  Flights are becoming like taking the bus.

"People don't want to pay what you're charging so you should drop the price"
AA: "No"
Repost to scare an economics 101 class.
- Replacing those seats with regular price seats is just as proper.
  
  The 16 first class seats will be replaced by 30 economy plus seats, increasing capacity by 14 additional passengers per flight and reducing cost of first class food and equipment to serve. A win-win for company and shareholders but a loss to consumer choice.
- Would this technically be anti-capitalistic? They're refusing to charge what the market will bear.
  
  More like a supply and demand issue I would think, the issue here being there is no demand for first class seating so they are limiting the amount of "supply" of those seats to accommodate for less demand. Some airlines don't offer first class seating at all, like Southwest.
  
  ""- econ 101 student
- AA: "No" cocks gun
- They could simply be chasing the largest profit.
  If you have 40 first class seats instead of 60 regular seats, why would you drop the price of the first class if you could make more with the 60 regular seats.

Business class costs 5x economy, first class is 10x
I would have to work months to be more comfortable for a few hours. Nope.
- Those taking first class peobably have their own jet anyway.
  
  No, it's expensive but not "private plane" expensive. I rode first-class international once because I was recovering from covid and didn't want to deal with the pain of coach (and the travel company that was responsible for my getting covid was paying some of the bill). I'm also 6'4" and don't physically fit in coach. So like, yeah, I'm being physically forced out of coach cause it's too small and I have to pay out the ass to just exist on a plane without physical pain. Must mean I have my own jet, and not that I'm getting fucked.
  
  Those taking first class are often traveling on a company’s dime or using credit card points.
- The truth is.If you have first class money you have money to get your own plane and go anywhere without babies crying.
  
  This isn't true at all... My wife and I fly first class and are no where near being able to afford flying private 🤣 the no babies part would be fantastic though.
  
  Dafuq?
- Is that an exaggeration? Deltas first class is like 4x economy.
  
  I compared AA flights from NYC to Paris on Google flights. Those were the real prices.

Who exactly are they eliminating? Their customers or international first class tickets? Or maybe both?
- Yes, thats the joke
- Also what about the first class seats?
  
  In First Class you stand.
- Pilots choice
- One would hope they end their international flights, regardless of the ticket class.

Makes sense, there is no US middle class anymore. The wealthy can just use a private jet while the poor are put on overbooked flights. Wealth disparity is getting worse and not better.
- Middle class? First class tickets were never for the middle class. Maybe it's just that
  business class it good enough, even for rich people
  American Airlines' first class is so bad that the first class passengers just go to other airlines...
- Many who don’t think of themselves as working class wouldn’t last very long at all without their salary.
  
  This. Working class means you need to work to survive. The elite loves to drive wedges into this idea so that there is less solidarity.
- Hot take and bubbled echo chamber warning

People who want to be treated like human beings on an airplane are already not flying American Airlines.
- I don't really care about airlines, but AA is the only airliner that flies out of the local regional airport (only flies to a bigger airport a few hours away), and I've never had any issues with them.
  The worst I've had was having to listen to a flight attendent talk about God because I was on the last row.
- We usually fly AA on flights to Europe. We live near KC, so our choices are AA or United (IIRC). And we prefer AA’s time schedule. Outside of major cities there is little choice to many destinations.

I’ve flown on AA’s international business and first class. The difference is negligible in terms of the seats and most people in them were complimentary upgrades since they couldn’t fill the seats.
The bigger differences were on the ground with the dining and check in. So all AA is doing is creating a “Business Plus” category that gets you the first class amenities on the ground and then a business class seat. This lets them put more business class seats on the plane and open things up to a bigger revenue stream.
- AA first has been a joke for a long time. It was an ever so slightly better seat and they served one extra course - a soup - but was otherwise identical to business class service. You can’t charge thousands more for soup.
  First class has been dying for years - and the only airlines that will do it, it’s really a prestige thing more than a profit center.
  
  AA is the last United States based airline to even have one. This move is an industry-wide trend now that lie-flat business class seats are standard. Business class has gotten much nicer in the past 10 years and taken away the customers that previously would have flown in first.
  I'd rather fly Qatar qsuites or many other si-enclosed business class seats than the first class ones remaining on European airlines like British Airways, Lufthansa, of air France. And doing so is a fraction of the price.

I need to fly from NJ to California in a few months. Economy tickets are around $275. I'd like a bit of extra legroom for the long flight, so I check out Economy plus. Economy plus tickets are $800. What in the actual fuck is this? It's not first class. I get no added benefits other than a few inches of extra leg room.
- Buy 2 seats, 1 behind the other, for $550 then walk in there with a toolbox and yeet that seat out through the emergency door onto the tarmac. You get more than a few inches and it only cost twice as much.
  
  If the emergency door is closed you might have to wait until the plane is in flight.

So that's why the door fell off...

Release the hounds. Leave no witnesses.

Lots of companies are willing to pay for international business class, but not first class. So airlines have responded by making business class nicer and nicer. That, in turn, has made former first class passengers just buy business class because it’s almost as good for cheaper. So people are not buying first class tickets, so might as well eliminate them and add more business.
Worth noting that domestic first class (which is what they show) is a totally different thing.

They're right. Few buy First Class tickets because the uptick in comfort and service from Business Class is tiny for the increase in cost. I fly Business but would never pony up for First.

I'm guessing that's because the international flights that Americans use instead are from other countries that does not have first class areas, in that everyone gets the same seating and leg space.
Such a disgusting socialist ploy. The CIA should coup the pilot and copilot and divvy up the plane in "desirables" and "undesirables", to then pin them against each other.
Call operation "Spiraling Eagle".
- I love how this comment escalated from a classical US vs EU post to a 1984 post

A bullet is cheaper than food, healthcare, and education.
Austerity submachine gun go brr.

89 comments