Why do airlines hate basic economy passengers? Let me count the ways.

For some airlines that's been in place for a couple of years.. not sure that it's still "news"

Unable to read without surrendering my email to them.

In general I think there is no 'hate' involved. If all you want is the cheapest way to get there, they will do that, but you are not going to get any perks.

A bare bones Corolla will get you to/from the grocery store, but if you want the comfort of a Lexus, you have to pay more.

Same with airfare.

It’s because they are not as profitable as other passengers.

You get what you pay for. If you only want the cheapest, you dont get the extras. Too bad, so sad.

From AI, "Yes, airlines often restrict benefits for basic economy passengers—such as charging for carry-ons, limiting seat selection, and restricting mileage earning—to incentivize signing up for co-branded credit cards. These cards offer perks like free checked bags and priority boarding, which act as a high-margin revenue source for airlines, often more profitable than selling actual flights."
Airlines make billions from their co-branded credit cards annually. If you feel the pinch, you might just obtain the salve.

I have noticed the people who have the most issues with Basic Economy are those who would never buy it. That doesnt make sense to me. I suspect that those Basic Economy seats sell out as fast as the Business Class does. And I suspect those Basic Economy seats allow tens of thousands of people to travel who otherwise wouldnt be able to. By the way, I have been known to fly Basic Economy. I value what I can spend my money on at the final destination more than the size of a seat for a few hours. Of course I travel with the stigma of being "one of them".

I buy basic economy and wasn't bothered by losing those miles. I'm more excited about round trip tickets from middle USA to Europe for under $700...

For those who fly Basic Economy, how do you handle the "No changes allowed" and "Choose your seat for a fee"? I have been tempted to choose BE because the next level allowing changes and choice of seat is always $200 more. I usually fly United. Are you taking a risk that you will be out the price of your ticket if something happens causing you to cancel? I've never been able to find what the "fee" is for choosing my seat.

I won't pay to choose a seat. I just want to get where I'm going. I was about to board a plane a few years ago and I heard a fellow passenger ask another fellow passenger about the seat assignment fee and they both tried it once and agreed it was a waste.

I am one of those 'unwashed masses' that populate the back of the (air)bus. I do have an AA credit card on which I collect miles. Last year, the mileage paid for the entire round trip. This year, one leg. Would I like to travel business class, stay and eat in fancy hotels and restaurants, absolutely. Do my finances allow it? No. Therefore, I will deal with seat 37D, Airbnbs, and 5 euro kababs in order to witness shafts of sunlight in the am pouring into a Romanesque church in a hilltop village somewhere in southern Europe.

The big airlines no longer make their most of their money on flights: they're banks that happen to offer flight services. Almost all of their money comes from credit card fees and point exchanges. It's an extraordinarily lucrative business for them and they're milking it for every dollar they can.

YouTube vid by Wendover Productions explains this pretty well.

-- Mike Beebe

I provided an email and it still won't let me read the article. But even without reading it I'll take a guess that it's a whiney, entitled writer complaining about not being satisfied that they don't get any perks when paying for the lowest possible airfare. I blame the consumer as much as I do the corporation. Everyone wants a deal but connotation that is still not enough.

I really fail to see the issue.

Products at different price points will have certain levels of features and perks. How hard is that to understand? In BE airlines have provided a fare that customers happily or willingly purchase, lacking features that they probably place little importance on. In turn I do not fly or spend money enough to have status and I do not have an airline branded credit card. I don't go around thinking "they" hate me.

I have noticed the people who have the most issues with Basic Economy are those who would never buy it.

There's truth in that.

As a frequent flyer , the people on here are posting that they don’t care what seats they want get so they’re not willing to pay are not the majority of the people buying basic economy. The majority of the people buying basic economy thought the airline had a special exception for them so that they could sit with their spouse, adult children, etc. I mean, I recently saw a woman having a fit because she couldn’t sit with her son - her son was 30 something years old and no, neither one of them had any kind of special needs. She just thought that the airline would understand they were a family.

I see it all the time - they’re at the airport just having a little fit because they’ve got a middle seat in the back, but they thought the airline knew they were special and they wouldn’t have to sit in the middle seat all the way to Europe( yep, they’re gonna have to sit in the middle seat all the way to Europe ).

Of course they’re not as bad as the people who saw on TikTok that the way to get a whole row to yourself is to take the middle seat and then people won’t book the window or the aisle or if they do they will move so that they could sit next to each other. I actually had this happen to me. The man in the middle seat said to me, don’t you want to move to sit by your husband? I said who? he said your husband on the other side of me. Since I was traveling alone, I had to tell this nice man that the man next to him was not my husband. The man next to me then said he thought he would not have to stay in the middle seat because he he’d seen this on TikTok. Yeah, he paid for a seat to wind up, sitting in a middle seat from Atlanta to California.

Caveat emptor. At all of my various and varied points of purchase, I consistently battle with my wants versus my need for a good deal. I appreciate having a broad spectrum of price points for the products and services I spend my hard earned money on and mostly aim for a win-win where I feel I've gotten the best value for the financial outlay. Depending on length of flight, I am either a BE or PE denizen with aspirations to live the BC life. I've enjoyed scoring excellent fares for international travel as well as gritted my teeth as I over pay for a domestic direct nonstop. I play the airline loyalty game, more for the advance seat assignment, priority boarding and check a bag perks than getting a decent deal using their miles or points. Just used 50K points for SEA - PSP midweek early April and I yearn for the days that route was often had for half that amount. But, I consider that I'm playing with house money when using the system for an airfare and that I have little control over how the financial valuation is set.

First we fly every three weeks to SFO. It’s a little over an hour flight. For $100+ less than economy, I can manage to sit in the back of the plane next to someone other than my husband. I had to laugh on our last flight, the plane was full in the far back “be” seats and almost empty everywhere else and the flight attendants were moving us all around to more even out the plane.