Sky-High Prices

As some of you know, I've spent most of my life around the airline industry.  My parents both work for locally-based Sun Country Airlines, and I have had opportunities to do intern and contract work for them occasionally.  Over the last year I represented Sun Country at 10+ trade shows and events, and every time I heard a multitude of comments/complaints about how expensive airfare is.  Now thankfully, at these events, people could sign up for a change to win a pair of round-trip tickets.  This usually quieted their complaints a bit.  But there is still that lingering tension when people want to ask me why tickets cost so much.  Before I give you my take on the subject, take a glance at these two articles:

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/2013-air-travel-predictions/story?id=18132379#.UbuSofbTV99
http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/expensive-airfare/

As seen by these and many other articles/opinion posts, there is a pattern in the explanations behind the high cost of flying.  Yet somehow, a lot of the people I talk to don't seem to understand that running an airline is a business.  When the cost of your supplies increases, you have to increase your prices.  Imagine the cost of putting gas in your car.  Now imagine you're responsible for putting thousands of gallons fuel in an airplane.  The price of jet fuel is constantly changing, which proves difficult for airlines when estimating their operating costs.  Once there's gas in the plane, you have to think about all the people involved in the process of getting the plane off the ground and taking you to your destination.  The airline has to pay for the privilege to operate out of each airport, and that cost includes necessities like ground crews, air traffic control, TSA, etc.  I think that the average customer doesn't think about all the costs involved in operating a plane, let alone a whole fleet of planes.

So how do airlines compensate for these constantly changing, rising prices of operating?  Well, they do their best to make everyone happy (they're actually not evil and greedy), but they are forced to ask for more money from their customers.  However, people tend to freak out when the base fare of their ticket goes up.  What happens is airlines find ways to acquire more money via add-on prices for conveniences like checked bags, seat selections, boarding priority, and in-flight amenities.  For example, Sun Country used to be known for having free cheeseburgers on every flight.  Now you have to pay $4 for a burger or other hot sandwich.  You used to be able to request your seat at the ticket counter or gate.  Now you get whatever seat is available, or you can make a request--for a fee.  Want an aisle seat?  That'll be $15.  Many people are outraged by these charges (just check out the Facebook wall for any airline), but they don't want to acknowledge the extremely high cost of getting to a destination via plane.

What's my point here?  No, airlines aren't trying to drain you for everything you're worth.  They're not trying to inconvenience you.  They're often not even trying to make a huge profit (though it'd be nice).  They're just trying to provide you with a service and still stay in business.  Next time you're fueling up your car, just be glad that you're not responsible for 5,000 or more gallons of jet fuel.