I recently endured one of the most grueling financial experiences known to modern man: booking a flight. I’m a frequent traveler, so booking a flight isn’t something uncommon for me. I fly with family, friends and sometimes solo. I also recently studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain, where I traveled to a different European country almost every weekend for four months. So, my exposure to airlines and their often-disappointing booking procedures is not unfamiliar to me.
But booking my flight recently to Hawaii from Los Angeles made me notice a stark contrast between American and European airlines: the price. Because of investment in public transportation and stronger regulation of its airlines, Europe has developed a relatively consumer-friendly industry — something America, unsurprisingly, still hasn’t discovered yet but should.
Both regions’ airlines also walk you through what feels like 500 unnecessary steps on their website. Each asks you to spend more money on add-ons that you usually don’t need, such as travel insurance, in-flight meals, an extra checked bag, seat selection or first-class upgrades. That much stays the same. It’s like walking through an incredibly underwhelming haunted house that isn’t scaring anyone other than your wallet.
But the difference is this: in Europe, your flight starts at $35. After all the pesky add-on steps, your ticket comes out to $100. Still reasonable for an international, three-hour flight.
However, in good ol’ America, the land of the free — except not free from corporate greed — a ticket starts at $200. After selecting “I don’t need this add-on” forty times, except for maybe some necessities like a checked bag, your ticket comes out to $385 for a four-hour flight. Then you’re sitting there, pulling out your credit card, scratching your head and thinking, “How did my ticket almost just double in price?”
After going through this exact scenario more times than I can count, guys, gals and my non-binary pals, I hereby present my comprehensive list of everything wrong with airlines in America, from the consumer perspective, for your review.
1. The illusion of choice
It may seem as if the consumer has a vast number of airlines to choose from when booking a flight. However, just four corporations cover 80% of all domestic flights in the US because of the mass consolidation of smaller airlines within the last few decades. So, the consumer essentially has to pick which of the four wealthy white guy CEOs they’d like to line the pockets of.
2. Add-ons treated like luxuries / the height tax
I’m 6-foot-2. This means my legs simply do not fit in a regular economy seat most of the time. That extra legroom in premium economy is a necessity for my sanity and the well-being of my legs, which become folded like pretzels in regular economy if the flight is any longer than two hours. I have dreams about the amount of money I’d save on airfare if I were four inches shorter. But airlines treat that extra legroom, along with every other add-on, like it’s the peak of luxury. Want to sit next to your elderly grandmother on the plane? That’ll be an extra $90. Each.
3. “Loyalty” programs
That program where you accumulate miles when you fly with an airline, and then you can use those miles to pay for future flights? Each mile with United Airlines is worth about 1.2 cents. Meaning, if you fly from Los Angeles to New York repeatedly, it would take you a whopping 14 flights before you get one paid for with miles. Oh, and that’s without the extra legroom on each flight!
4. Airline Greenwashing
Among those five hundred steps of add-ons before you get to the checkout page, many airlines will ask if you’d like to offset your carbon emissions, for a fee. This fee is usually no more than ten dollars, but it’s still the epitome of corporate greenwashing. Carbon offset and other airline sustainability programs are often advertised vaguely and are poorly regulated. This means your 10 bucks will do more to clear your conscience and make you feel better about your carbon footprint than it does to actually curb climate change.
Perhaps the most crucial point that I left off this list is that airlines weren’t always like this, so what created such a predatory airline industry? This can be attributed to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, a massive deregulation of the entire airline industry, including pricing, signed by President Jimmy Carter. Essentially, Carter told the entire airline industry to “go wild, the government won’t stop you!”
Some may argue that this act was beneficial for Americans in the long run, as tickets today are about 40% cheaper than before the act when accounting for inflation. Sure, flights may be cheaper on paper, but this statistic doesn’t account for the stress caused during the predatory booking process. To make matters worse, airlines usually don’t include a therapist as an add-on option, as surprising as that may be!
The inflation statistic also conveniently doesn’t acknowledge the price difference by region. European airlines cost a fraction compared to American airlines due to competition, as European nations have invested heavily in public transportation. This means airfare has to compete with not just other airlines but also cheaper modes of transportation, such as buses, high-speed rail and the radical idea that you could just… not fly. This leaves room for budget airlines to compete as well, like Ryanair or EasyJet, which are considerably cheaper than any American airline that will charge you $50 to blink on their airplane.
To be completely honest, Carter and the 95th United States Congress also should have seen this coming. It’s the nature of corporations to make money first, then deal with the “Why is my ticket $800?” questions afterwards by adopting predatory business models. The Industrial Revolution was blatant proof of this, as this era saw numerous political cartoons depicting capitalism as a larger man taking over the government. Therefore, this act, without any major policy revisions of the airline industry later on, effectively left airlines to marinate in a free-to-exploit stew for 47 years to compete, buy each other out and invent new, dehumanizing ways to charge you for the privilege of being a sardine in a tin container at 35,000 feet in the air.
I hope my fellow frequent flyers feel seen while reading this, and if you aren’t a frequent flyer… be warned. It’s rough out here. Maybe move to Europe first. Also, if you aren’t above 6 feet tall, take a minute to appreciate how much money you save on airfare by not needing extra legroom. I envy you.
Alexander Randall is an Opinion Intern for the summer 2025 quarter. He can be reached at arandal1@uci.edu.
Edited by Rebecca Do and Julia Kremenetsky