Why Air Travel Is So Cheap

Sixty years ago, air travel was far tooexpensive for the masses.

Book a flight between New Yorkand London on Pan Am in 1960, and you'd be paying somewhere around $300, or about $2, 600, adjusted for inflation.

But in 2019, you can catch the same flight for almost a tenth of the price.

It looks like flyinghas never been cheaper, but is that the real story? And how did we get here? The first scheduled commercialflight took place in 1914.

It had one passenger and was piloted by this guy, Tony Jannus.

The flight was from St.

Petersburg to Tampa.

What would have been a 12-hour train ride became a quick 23-minute trip.

The flight proved that there was demand for scheduled aviation as transportation.

Jannus is largely creditedwith laying the groundwork for the modern aviation business, which has grown into amultibillion-dollar industry.

In 2018, there were an estimated 45 million flights worldwide, and the average fare for adomestic flight in the US was $350.

Now, $350 is hardly considered cheap, but take a look at this graph.

Average ticket prices havebeen steadily decreasing since 1980.

In fact, tickets are closeto their lowest prices ever.

But from 1950 to 1980, flying was different.

Before 1978, fares and routes in the US were closely regulated bythe federal government, and many routes had fixed minimum prices.

Scott Mayerowitz: Whatended up happening is you got into a highly regulated industry where the federal government set the various routes that you could fly, set how much prices could be, and the airlines wereraking in the dollars.

Narrator: The story acrossEurope was slightly different, as most airlines were state-controlled and air travel was treatedas a public service.

But in 1978, everything changed.

Then President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act, and the aviation industrywas open for business.

Free from government regulation, airlines now had onegoal: to sell tickets.

Mayerowitz: What reallyhappened after deregulation was just this massive fight.

Airlines were doingeverything to get market share and not really looking at profitability.

The theory was, the morepeople we can get onto a plane, the more we can dominate themarket, the more we're winning.

But they didn't reallylook at it as a business where you needed, at the endof the day, to make a profit.

And as soon as you had onelittle economic hiccup, a bit of a recession ora spike in oil prices, that's when airlines really start to fail.

Narrator: At the same time, aircraft technology was also advancing, which made the planes more efficient.

New wing technology wasimplemented, such as winglets, which made planes more aerodynamicand reduced flight times.

Computer systems began toreplace older cockpit technology, making the planes less reliant on pilots.

Shortly after planes gotcomputers, so did people, and pricing began to geteven more competitive.

Websites like Expedia and Priceline, launched in the late '90s, began to catalog all of the lowest prices.

Budget-airline models wereable to thrive because of this, as consumers would regularlyclick the cheapest prices.

For many airlines, thiscompetition was unsustainable.

Over the years, a lot of companies folded, merged, or absorbed one another.

And today, the four largest US airlines control 80% of the market.

One of these four, Southwest, has a fleet of 753 planes, each of which has an averageof six flights per day.

That's about 4, 000 flights a day.

And while that may sound like a lot, that frequency isdecreasing across America.

This is because something calledload factor is increasing.

Mayerowitz: One of the keymetrics for the airlines is called load factor, and thisis basically your occupancy.

How many seats do you have available and what percentage ofthose are being sold or occupied by passengers.

Narrator: Basically, thatmeans aircraft are flying at full capacity, orclose to it, more often.

And this is good for airlines.

And for flyers, sort of.

Airlines are able to keep fares low because most of the seats have been sold.

Which isn't always great for passengers.

Ever been the last one on the plane and there's no moreoverhead luggage space? Or had no room for your legs because the seats are so close together? There are tons of budgetairlines around the world.

Some of the more notable ones are Ryanair, Norwegian, Spirit, and Frontier.

These companies usually charge extra for traditionally included amenities, like reserving your seat, while cutting costs wherever they can.

Mayerowitz: This issue of cramming more passengers onto planes is happening all across the world.

You look at a discountcarrier like Ryanair, based in Ireland butflies all over Europe.

They're looking at putting200 people on a Boeing 737.

This is a plane that some airlines are still flying with 150, 160 passengers.

That's really, really crowded.

But it maximizes profit.

And when you fly in anairline like Ryanair, you know exactly what you're getting.

Narrator: So, take that$320 flight on Norwegian from New York to London.

Need anything other than onesmall piece of hand luggage? The fare jumps to $490.

Want a refundable ticketand two checked bags? Suddenly you're at $1, 379.

That's about $100 more than the inflation-adjusted 1977 price, which came with all thoseextras included as standard and more legroom, too.

And non-budget airlines haveseen the potential profit in this budget model.

More and more airlinesare beginning to charge hidden fees on top of the ticket price, from checking baggage tojust choosing your seat.

Find the right deals, though, and flying can be cheaper than ever, but that original price you saw advertised may be misleading, and the experience that you get these days might not be the most pleasant, as manufacturers continue to cut costs.

But the world of bargain-budgetfares may not last.

Aviation emissions are predictedto possibly triple by 2050, and many countries have begun implementing stricter environmental taxes for flights.

Mayerowitz: Overall, there'slittle that the industry can squeeze out of airfare right now.

They're gonna get much moreefficient with aircraft, and that's gonna mean less fuel burning.

But the cost of labor isprobably not gonna go down.

You still need good, quality people to fly an airplane andbe your flight attendants and be there for your safety.

.