The hardware store doesn't have 100,000 people vying for that can of paint. Nor does it depend on 50,000 other connections, sub connections, weather, delays, holidays, or other issues. In the case of buying a can of paint, you're buying just that: a metal can with some colored liquid inside.

With an airline ticket, you're buying a slot on a seat that has a sliding scale of availability the closer you get to purchase. Supply and demand. If there are a lot of seats available, the cost won't necessarily be that high; with only a few seats available, the cost may be higher.

Compound that with the fact that your ticket isn't being sold to you by one, but several airlines, and the way that ticket will play out will depend on whether someone bought that ticket over several legs, or one leg; if you take that seat, you might get it for just the one leg, but you might make a connection unavailable to someone with a more expensive ticket. Ergo, you pay for the opportunity cost, and your ticket cost may be higher.

Airline ticket sales are more complex because the system is a hell of a lot more complex than buying a can of paint.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

quote:

Originally posted by jigray3:
A seat on an airliner has become a commodity, and it being treated as such by airlines.

This has always been the case. It's a business.

Actually, no, it hasn't always been the case. Yes, it's a business, but not the same business it was 25 or 50 years ago. The product has changed dramatically over the history of air travel. It was a high end product marketed to an affluent demographic. The quality of the experience mattered significantly because repeat business was important. Now, the sale of the product is price driven. Very few people are interested in paying more. If they were, first class would be much larger.

No, it's always been a business. It's been a business since the Wrights extorted the Smithsonian to force them to be declared first in flight (by witholding donation of a Wright Flyer), and stifled aviation innovation through lawsuits for the first 20 years in powered flight, until today. It's a business, and often a cutthroat one, whether the public sees it that way, or not.

The trappings of the passenger compartment have changed, but not the profit motive. It's all business. It always has been, even from the days of the Kelly Act (1925).