Galley Gossip: The problem with "soaring" ticket prices

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-08-2008 @ 1:42PM

Mikael said...

"Because the ad, the one I mentioned above from 1950, lists the price of a ticket from New York to Paris for $326. Please, can anyone tell me, what else out there costs the exact same price as it did over fifty years ago?"

Adjusting for inflation $325 in 1950 is equivalent to ~$2800 today. So.. The price hasn't really stayed the same, has it?

Anyhow, people will always complain when prices are going up for a service you used to pay less for. Only in this case most of the airlines' customers see airtravel as an expendable "luxury" which leads to a large drop in demand as prices go up.
If people *had* to fly to go on vacation, visit family or do business then the airline industry would still be doing fine, the problem is that there are just too many alternatives.

6-09-2008 @ 12:10AM

LawyerChick said...

I agree. I think back to when I was a starving grad student 20 years ago, and contemplating round-trip cross-country air tickets to visit my family. I would pounce if the fare got anywhere near $200. I still fly the same airline, and the service has not changed all that much (okay, we used to have meals in coach but really, they were not very good!), and a "cheap" cross-country ticket is still $225-$250.

It now costs almost $50 in gas for us to drive our car 4 hours to our weekend home in a neighboring state. For 4-5x that cost I could go to the other coast, not have to drive, and sleep, watch a movie, have a DRINK (cranberry juice or tomato juice) or read a book during that time. Air travel is still cheap, especially considering how much fuel costs.

6-10-2008 @ 5:54PM

karen said...

Adjusting for inflation $325 in 1950 is equivalent to ~$2800 today. So.. The price hasn't really stayed the same, has it?

Uh, Mikael, maybe you should do a search on flights from JFK to CDG. There are dozens of fares less than $1000. This summer, not a year from now.

According to your numbers, the ticket price is less than it was 50 years ago, which I think is the point.

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