To think that airlines need a complete overhaul, and more regulation?

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

The amount of money theyre charging for flights, where youre sat in a teeny seat and offered a crap meal ..

Other industries have improved their offerings, but airlines continue to operate to the same crappy standards

More seat space should be given as standard. Forcing people to sit in a tiny seat for 8 hours at a time is awful and must have awful effects on the human body?!

WiFi should be free, as its practically a human right atp.

Food should be of a better standard

Where can people lobby for change?!

My aunt left for the US in the late 1970s. It wasn't til the late 90s that she could afford flights home more than once every 5 years as it was so expensive.
Ryanair/Easyjet changed our expectations of flight costs significantly, the airlines which offered food and free luggage all abandoned it over the decades since in an attempt stay afloat. And as PP say we shouldn't we flying if we can avoid it. Prices will have to go up and im sure comfort will follow eventually.

According to published figures, Ryanair made 8 Euros per passenger it carried.

OP should look at the cost of Eurotunnel. High season it's absolutely crazy prices for a 30 minute trip

i hadn’t thought about screens. That’s a fair point. The entertainment on offer has improved a lot over the last 20 or 30 years.

What hasn’t improved is the seat. Seat pitch used to be 34 inches or sometimes up to 36 inches in economy. Now it’s usually 31 inches even for long haul. Seats gave got narrower too. A 2-4-2 row is now 3-3-3. Everything just feels a lot more cramped than it used to be.

YANBU. I watch youtube videos of vloggers flying first/business/economy class, and, almost without exception, the seat, table and other amenities are encrusted with grime.

It would be lovely if we could all just magically have a nicer flight, but the reality to it is that the loss of capacity caused by giving everyone more space would mean higher prices, and I don't want that.

At the moment there's a choice to pay more for more comfort. I'd rather pay the smallest amount and put up with being a bit squished.

I often bring my own food on flights - or buy something nicer in the airport (there’s a seafood place that sells nice smoked salmon or prawn salads in my main airport) than what is available to buy on the plane. Most of my flights are on “pay from the trolley” ones, although there are still a couple who will give you a soft drink and a ham or cheese roll for free.

If I am spending more than 3 hours on a flight, I fight with my travel desk to book with certain airlines or specific flights (to get specific aircraft types) so I am not cooped up. As even at only 5’4”, my knees get very cramped jammed up against the seat in front.

Even booking business class doesn’t guarantee a good flight - a colleague was moved on an overbooked flight recently from business to the last row in economy (to get home that day - others due to fly were bumped for following days), her travel rules are if you fly business, even overnight, you work the following day so she had a 9 hour flight in economy after a hellish week and had to go into work straight as she landed.

Fuel costs have risen so airfares are going to increase this summer, but the offering on board is not likely to get any better. So you probably need to be prepared for that.

Very controversial thinking perhaps, but i believe flying should be a lot more expensive for a number of reasons.

• environmentally: we cant sustain that if we want to have a chance to leave our children / grand children a world that isnt completely f…d up.
• economically: some villages / cities ate bursting in the summer months with too many tourists, driving the local economy up, pricing out locals, etc
• preservation

we need self regulation somer can go back to a more manageable situation.

We had free « messaging wifi » (ie whatsapp, emails but not internet browsing) on BA longhaul recently. That was when flying economy.

Yep they"ve been introducing it for a while.

Last time I flew with them ( v recently) you needed to be an exec club member for it to be free but joining that club doesn't cost anything.

If you fly on the right airlines you’ll find that many are actually already offering free WiFi. We flew on Qatar Airways recently who have installed StarLink - it was absolutely brilliant, the speed was better than you’d get on the ground! DD was able to quite happily scroll away on TikTok/Instagram and I could easily chat to friends via WhatsApp. A real game changer on long haul flights in comparison to sitting watching awful, boring movies for 12 hours. No passengers taking video calls.. anyone sitting on a £900 flight is typically more civilised than that!

Glad to hear that people were civilised

Hostile flying conditions... Air Ukraine ? Iran Air?

My return flights to Spain cost on average about £80, sometimes less. Forty years ago they were three times that amount. Believe it or not you are getting value for money on the budget airlines.

The problem is lack of choice. If I wanted to pay more and fly in comfort from a local airport, I couldn’t. There’s where the problem lies.

So you want better food, more comfort, and extra room, but you can't/won't understand that this costs more?

Businesses wanting to make as much profit as possible - hold the front page for this groundbreaking insight!

There are many things that are unaffordable to a lot of people. Flights are a luxury.

You can have all that OP you just have to pay for it .

What follows is really not a criticism of the deal you get but just a general observation:

UK-Spain return for £80 almost certainly means the airline is flying you at a loss (unless you then contribute £££s by way of ancillary revenue - seat choice fee, onboard purchases etc).

I think many who criticise the industry don't really understand the costs airlines have to cover (far more than just fuel) and how the pricing of tickets is structured to ensure that hopefully, overall, the airline makes enough of a profit to stay in business.

Clearly you lot are millionaires tbh, i dunno what more can be said

I've seen it all, people arguing that the poor capitslists are struggling with charging us so much for long haul flights in those awful conditions 😩😩😩😩

There are plenty of airlines that publish annual accounts, why don't you see for yourself just how much profit they are making and come back with a more reasoned position?

(That's a rhetorical question by the way - I can see that you're allergic to facts and just want to moan.)

🙄🙄 while I do want to moan, I am not allergic to facts

But I will not be doing that and I am moving on with my life

Supporting airline bosses is the world's biggest ick, sorry!

The best way to NOT support airline bosses is to not take any flights.

I guess you appreciate your fare does more than just support airline bosses?

Even at the worse outfits after all the bills incurred carrying paying passengers have been paid some of the money trickles down from the top table and ends up in the pockets of employees....

Okay Thatcher.