“All three of the country’s largest carriers (American Airlines, United Airlines, and Delta) are penalizing solo travelers with higher ticket prices than you can book when traveling with a group.” Assholes.
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
Comments 5
thread
latest
popular
Putting this out to the universe: we need a way to connect solo travelers with others that are planning similar flights.
Another way of looking at this is: most business travelers fly / book solo, and price sensitivity and shopping around will be less for those bookings (and they'll likely have less flexibility). So, in a way, this is 'sticking it to the man' in practice, with individual leisure travelers being a negative externality. Still sucks!
Agreed. This is about business travel. Not intended to penalize free spirits who do their own thing. They just can't find a better way to charge corporate accounts more.
I'd softly challenge this conclusion because it's not accounting for the airlines now charging additional fees for seating assignments. Families sitting together will pay more collectively for seat assignments compared to solo travelers that will sit anywhere in the cabin. And to put more of a point to it, you even have to pay additional seat assignment fees for children to be guaranteed seated directly to the right or left of their parents. For example, if I bought a ticket for me and my 8-year-old without paying the extra seat selection charges, they will automatically seat them "together" but the airlines' definition of "together" includes assigning me in a middle seat with my child in the middle seat in the row in front or behind. Obviously this is a bonkers way of defining "together" and nearly everyone will pay more to sit together with their family on a flight.
Plus baggage fees. If you're travelling with a kid for any length of time, you're probably going to have to check a bag, and that's rarely free these days, even on international flights. And fees to board anything other than dead last, because they no longer allow families with children over something like 2 (depends on the airline, I think) to board early and get settled. Business travellers don't check bags, or at least I didn't when I travelled for work. And they usually have status and board early for free. (I miss those days, but travel has been shut down at work since they realized we could all connect on Teams instead.)
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!