I was reading a provocative (and lengthy) Fox Business blog-post this morning on the airlines, in which the author suggested the following: “Traveling is a luxury. You will have to pay more for it. Live – and fly – with it.” - Brian Sullivan, Fox Business Channel After taking a few jabs at the airlines, Sullivan then starts throwing haymakers at passengers about their expectation levels, and suggests the airlines quit catering to the masses — masses who think air travel should be cheap. He also makes the same old tired arguments about the new “a la carte” pricing” — what I call the “But We Don’t Mind Paying for This Other Stuff” argument: We pay $10 bucks for popcorn and Coke at the movies We pay $20 to eat out on Friday when we can cook at home for $10 We pay less? Then safety could be compromised Do you buy this argument? I don’t either, and I’ll tell you why, so — keep reading.

This argument doesn’t wash with me. Movie theatres and baseball parks don’t have a 30 year history of providing water, soda, pillows and blankets — for free. So, if you’ve been getting something for nothing — for years — and it’s suddenly taken away — sorry, but that’s a classic recipe for “grumpiness”. Righteous grumpiness.

Then there’s the argument that the airlines make the same money on passengers now as they did 20 years ago — the author quotes “revenue per passenger mile” stats from 1985 and today, to back this up. But his argument that flying is “essentially the same” then and now is, at best, a bit out of touch.

• What about the explosive growth in air travel where hundreds of millions ofthe”non-rich” began to enjoy air travel
• Boeing, Airbus, GE, Embraer and Bombardier might have a bone to pick on whether aircraft and engine technology has improved in both cost and safety in the past 23 years
• In 1985 sales processing was done mostly by hand with paper tickets — now we get boarding passes with ads on them
• In 1985 travel agents did most of the bookings and were making 5-15% commission – where are the travel agents now?
• In 1985 airline call centers weren’t located in India
• In 1985 the Internet was only a glint in the inventors eye (Al Gore of course)

Now one thing I will grant him — unfortunately the Air Traffic Control system is essentially the same. But, I digress.

Railing on passengers who “expect” cheap airfare and saying they should pay more and be happy is a bit simplistic — but certainly not uncommon. You hear this a lot from business travelers — you know, people whose companies pay for their tickets. The same business travelers who then fly free for vacation and other travel, thanks to the awards tickets they got from the work travel paid for by their companies…