REVEALED: How greedy airlines use ‘calculated misery’ to make flying as unpleasant as possible for anyone who refuses to pay for extras that were once free

“Calculated misery” is the theory that commercial airlines make their customer experience so terrible that people spend money on services that used to be free to avoid the inconvenience.

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, first coined the term in 2014 in a piece for the New Yorker where he described a concerted effort by the airline industry to maximize profits by making low-quality basic products and then offering upgrades for sale.

“For fees to work, there has to be something worth avoiding. That requires, at some level, a strategy that could be described as ‘calculated misery,'” Wu said.

‘The basic service, without costs, must have deteriorated enough that people are willing to pay to escape it. And that’s where the suffering begins.’

Airlines benefit by charging for services such as seat selection, baggage and priority boarding.

The US Department of Transportation found that airlines took in $5.3 billion in baggage fees alone in 2022

A recent 2022 report shows that eight major US airlines earned $4.2 billion in revenue from assigned seat costs

“Airlines have become experts at charging passengers for everything from checked bags to priority boarding to selecting a window or aisle seat or the front of the cabin,” said Eric Rosen, director of content at travel agency The Points Guy. told Next star.

“It can be confusing for many travelers to understand what they get for the extra money they spend.”

A recent report from an aviation consultancy IdeaWorksCompany In 2022, eight major U.S. airlines earned $4.2 billion in revenue from assigned seat charges.

Purchasing an airline ticket gets a customer onto the plane, but often without paying to select their seat, passengers don’t know where they will sit or who they will sit with.

After last year’s holiday travel chaos, when Southwest Airlines canceled more than 80 percent of its flights just before Christmas, President Joe Biden vowed to crack down on airline surcharges.

“We are banning airlines from charging families up to $50 just to sit together,” Biden said in his State of the Union address in February.

“Baggage fees are bad enough; they can’t just treat your child like a piece of luggage.’

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, airlines will rake in $5.3 billion in baggage fees alone in 2022.

In December 2022, flights from Seattle were canceled due to freezing rain. Following the holiday travel chaos, lawmakers have vowed to crack down on airline fares

Passengers wait at Seattle airport after all flights were canceled in December 2022. In response to the airline Christmas chaos, President Biden called out airlines for their extra charges, including charging families to sit together

Spirit Airlines has the highest hidden fees of any U.S. airline, making trips 736 percent more expensive than their basic airfare, according to analysis from discount code website NetVoucherCodes.

In August, the airline agreed to pay up to $8.25 million to settle a passenger class action lawsuit alleging sneaky baggage fees of up to $100.

The lawsuit alleged that the budget airline’s carry-on baggage fees were a surprise and deliberately hidden to make a profit.

The airplane boarding process is notoriously inefficient and is complicated by airline upgrades to passengers for queuing and carry-on luggage.

Passengers boarding last face the problem of no room for their suitcases in the overhead bin, and some try to jump the queue during boarding. But efficient boarding is made more difficult because the airlines want to make money with upgrades.

‘Priority entry saves money. To some extent, that money is worth more than worrying about boarding three minutes early every time,” says Seth Miller, who writes about the travel experience at Paxex.aero.

Rob Burgess of frequent flyer website Go for points said: ‘There are good reasons why, 100 years after the founding of the world’s oldest airlines, boarding systems are still a mess.’

Spirit Airlines has agreed to pay up to $8.25 million to settle a class action lawsuit by passengers over sneaky baggage fees of up to $100

United Airlines will make changes to its boarding process this week by first boarding economy passengers with window seats

‘Although mathematicians love to come up with the perfect system, it is always ruined by passengers and airport staff not behaving the way the models say they should.’

“The best-rated model is generally considered to be the Steffen Boarding method, which has been shown to board an aircraft twice as fast as the back-to-front method,” Burgess said.

‘The process involves placing people in a straight line on the plane, in the following order, from back to front. Window Seat Odd Numbered, Window Seat Even Numbered, Middle Seat Odd Numbered, Middle Seat Even Numbered and so on.”

United Airlines will first begin boarding economy class passengers with window seats, a move aimed at reducing the time planes spend on the ground.

The airline said in an internal memo that it will implement the plan on October 26. The plan – called WILMA, for window, center and aisle – has been tested in several locations and is expected to reduce off-boarding time by up to two minutes.

United is making the change after finding that boarding time has increased by two minutes since 2019.