The Economics of Airline Class
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters recommend it as an in-depth, accessible look at airline class economics and revisit it in many discussions about airlines.
What it is
Wendover Productions explains how airlines make money from different cabin classes and why premium seats matter so much to profits. It also touches on how this shaped decisions such as the decline of supersonic travel.
Recommended by 6 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2017 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec sillysaurus3 · 2018-01 · on “As of today, no US passenger airlines operate the Boeing 747”
If anyone finds the operation of airlines a fascinating topic, you might like Wendover Productions: [LINK] How airlines price flights [LINK] The little plane war [LINK] Why planes don't fly faster [LINK] The economics of Airline Class [this video] How airlines schedule flights [LINK] I just recently found the channel. So much good stuff. (My unrelated favorite is [LINK] How the US government will survive doomsday.)
Strong rec alehul · 2019-03 · on “First-class air travel is in decline”
Would highly recommend the YouTube video below [0] from Wendover, which went pretty in-depth on the economics of airline classes a while ago, and how first-class was the least profitable for the airlines. :) [0] [this video]
Strong rec filereaper · 2021-11 · on “Billion-dollar airline routes”
Highly recommend Wendover's videos on Airline economics, this specific one is about the various classes in Airline seats [this video]
Recommends djsumdog · 2017-04 · on “How the Airlines Became Cartels”
There's a good Wendover video on airline classes: [this video] And another great one about AmTrak in relation to flight: [LINK]
Recommends caio1982 · 2018-07 · on “Is killing the boom the key to supersonic air travel?”
There is also another Wendover one explaining the economics or airlines classes and it talks about specifically why supersonic flights went into oblivion: [this video]
Recommends mynameisvlad · 2019-06 · on “Flying-V: Flying long distances energy-efficiently”
Economy class seats generally speaking will earn the least amount of money to an airline, so this idea would actually likely be the most unprofitable option. To make it truly profitable, you convert the plane to First class, but then you'll need to fill all those seats. Wendover Productions had a great video on this a few years ago: [this video]
Cites shimon_e · 2017-04 · on “United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler”
Unfortunately, due to the economics of airline class[0], privileged passengers account for about 70% of airline revenue. 0. [this video]
Cites clarkenheim · 2018-05 · on “Concorde ‘B’”
According to this: [this video] First/business class seats are where the airlines make all of their money, so Concord would be economically viable today.