There’s a new scandal in the travel industry: Airlines are offering slight discounts to families and other groups that buy tickets together.
“BREAKING: As if flight prices weren’t ugly enough, two major U.S. airlines are still charging solo passengers higher fares than groups of two or more,” reported travel writer Kyle Potter. “United & especially American are increasingly penalizing solo flyers, our latest analysis found – with some egregious examples.”
Many readers on X pointed out that it is, in fact, normal for sellers to extend discounts to those who buy in bulk. Your baker probably charges a lone donut eater more per donut than he charges the class mom who buys two dozen. Tour groups often get “egregious” discounts, too, compared to solo travelers.
Facing this argument from dozens of readers, the travel writer vented, “Someone on this site seemingly mobilized the Mad Dads
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The travel readers were also very annoyed. “There’s little out there that’s worse than Pro-Family Conservatives
This may seem like a silly online dust-up — and to some extent, it is. But the episode also reflects some pretty interesting things about American moral sensibilities.
First, there is a deep-seated demand for equality and fairness. “Passengers are angry because they see someone else paying far less for the same seat on the same flight,” as travel writer Gary Leff put it when Potter first exposed this “outrage.”
This anger is an American thing, or at least a wealthy Western thing. In most of the world, haggling over prices is normal. To Americans, it’s unseemly and reeks of dishonesty. We want most of our transactions to be neutral, at arm’s length, equal, and transparent.
And transparency is central to the anger about the pricing: The airlines aren’t advertising family pricing. They keep the differential pricing secret because this is about charging more to the less price-sensitive (such as business travelers, who often get to expense the ticket).
But you can’t ignore the vastly different worldviews that might be sitting across the aisle from one another on a 737 to Spokane.
AN AIRPORT SPECTACLE FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
Mom and Dad, taking the kids to see Grandma, see a family discount as a slight relief from the massive burden they are bearing, considering they are a single household covering the cost of four or five people.
A few feet away sits jet-setter Conor, an avid consumer of the travel blogs, who is not only likely to be child-free (perhaps by choice) but also mobile, global, and very individualistic. He sees the three kids across the aisle not as the natural fruit of a loving marriage but as lavish consumption choices by the parents, and thus he sees a family discount as a lifestyle subsidy.
Same species. Same plane. Different worldview. And, it seems, different prices.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
