Airfare alone isn’t a great indicator of price, since airlines have been reducing benefits—luggage generally is an upcharge now, whereas it used to be built into the ticket price.
They are very guilty of shrinkflation in general. For example, first class used to get you access to the airport lounges. Now you need a very expensive subscription of some sort to get access.
Lounges have gotten significantly worse since Covid though with overcrowding issues (with some exceptions like KIX), so I don’t think it’s a particularly great loss. My card lets me pay some token amount to gain access to lounges but I’d rather spend that money to get an actual meal cooked for me rather than a buffet and then sit in a quiet corner of the terminal than a crowded lounge.
This varies: a family member of mine flew cross-country a few weeks ago first class (on the company's dime) and was given automatic access to the lounges there.
International first class / business class travel is a different category than domestic. I was just referring to domestic. It usually costs an order of magnitude more so there are still some decent perks associated with it.
Transcontinental flights often qualify when shorter ones would not. If your flight has lay-flat seats (I usually fly Delta, so think Delta One), your ticket for one of those will usually cover the lounges. Whereas a standard domestic first-class ticket does not.
But then again, these short flights are often CHEAP. Even in “first”, where the perk is…a wider chair, sitting near the front and better snacks i suppose.
Example: I can fly from NYC to Chicago for $80 in economy. In first it’s about $200 on delta. I certainly wouldn’t expect free access to a good lounge with decent food for free at that price. It would be hard for me to be disappointed as a flyer at those prices.
A 45L backpack ("personal item") and a 50L duffle bag (carry-on) give you a huge amount of space sufficient for pretty much any travels on the cheapest ticket.
I do this all the time on Alaska. I have the same Peak Design travel backpack as a sibling comment mentioned, plus an ordinary overhead roller suitcase. Maybe one in five times I have to gate-check the suitcase, but the rest of the time I have ~90L of space carried on and off the plane.
How is it inconsiderate? The suitcase goes in the overhead where I'm taking up no more space than any other passenger, the backpack fits under the seat in front of me. It squashes my legs a bit, but the only person getting inconvenienced there is myself.
1. You've literally described an overhead bag that exceeds the maximum allowable carry-on dimensions at pretty much every airline, so you're taking more than your share of overhead space.
2. Flights get slowed down for everyone when people are exceeding the underseat bag size limits - sometimes the bags do get checked in the metal sizers at the gate, which causes obvious slowdowns, and 300 passengers with 45L underseat bags are going to take significantly longer to board/deplane than 300 passengers with <24L underseat bags.
3. I'm skeptical that you can actually fit a 45L bag under plane seats without ever inconveniencing other passengers. Seats are pretty tight and it's pretty easy for a larger bag to push your legs sideways so they cross the midpoint of the armrest. And various planes don't have dividers between every under-seat area, so if your bag is oversized it's easy for your bag and/or feet to spill into your neighbour's under-seat area. But maybe you're small or very disciplined and are able keep your body and belongings in your own seat area, I've (probably) never sat next to you, so can't say for sure.
Every flight I've been on this year, except one, has demanded people check bags at the gate before Group 1 even finishes boarding.
Although, this seems to apply only to hardshell wheeled cases - I walked aboard with my backpack & shoulder bag without any issues, and fit my backpack into an overhead compartment and shoulder bag under my seat with no problems.
But next time, I may try to pack everything into a single backpack, and re-configure things once I'm in my seat so I have easy access to a smaller subset of stuff in my shoulderbag instead.
> Every flight I've been on this year, except one, has demanded people check bags at the gate before Group 1 even finishes boarding.
I don't think this is that unreasonable. Gate staff can look around and count how many bags people have, and they know how much space is in the overhead bins. Not to mention that nearly every flight will run out of overhead space, so they might as well start demanding people check bags sooner rather than later.
Though the overhead bin space probably wouldn't be as bad if airlines were better about enforcing size limits. So often, a roller bag is just an inch or two too tall, so has to be placed lengthwise in the overhead bin, making it take up space that could have fit 2-3 bags.
If I see that happening and I'm traveling light enough, I've merged my backpack into my duffle bag so that I have one single "personal item" for under the seat in front of me. Nobody ever seems to care that it doesn't cleanly fit.
But jeez, forcing check-ins during Group 1 is worse than I've ever seen it. I guess it's more and more popular to use two hard-shell carry-ons and put them into the overhead compartment. And I guess the airline just sees it as an incentive for you to buy a more expensive seat.
This is a good move anyway, as the overhead bins fill rapidly but you can always count on your under-seat space. And if you do find space overhead, you have a bit more room to stretch your legs with nothing filling in that space.
I usually travel with my wife & 3 kids, and ... yeah, none of those things will work. I might still be able to fit my youngest in that backpack, I don't think she could wear one (She might be a bit too big now).
The airline charges everyone else $50 per bag, $50 for selecting your seat, gives you $10 off for traveling with a backpack in a middle seat, and pockets $90 after costs. I'm glad you feel lucky about that.
There's even gems like "no carry ons" and "no airline miles" tickets now. They cost the same as the lowest fares last year.
> The airline charges everyone else $50 per bag, $50 for selecting your seat, gives you $10 off for traveling with a backpack in a middle seat, and pockets $90 after costs
And at the end of the day, operates at a pre-tax[1] profit margin of 5% (in a good year), or 0% in a bad one.
If all airlines became altruistic non-profit entities tomorrow that only exist to serve their customers and nobody else, your ticket prices wouldn't drop more than ~$10-20.
[1] Post-tax, it's at 2.5%, but I'm not qualified to get into whether or not there's Hollywood accounting going on.
