[yourMadness]

Of course the customer accepts the lower quality.

Dying once every 10 million flight hours instead of every 1000 million flight hours is a fair price to pay for 10 USD of savings.

[makomk]

Also, air travel has actually got safer over time, not less safe - despite the massive increase in air travel, total deaths have actually gone down over time. The whole reason that the 737 MAX problems were such big news is that passenger airplanes are so safe these days that even one air crash is remarkable, let alone two which appear to have the same cause.

[jandrese]

It's more like a $800 difference in ticket price. People forget just how expensive it was to fly back before deregulation. A ticket that cost $600 in 1980 dollars goes for $300 today.

[hackernewsboy]

Think about computers. Apple Machintosh costed $2000, now ... Why airplane industry cannot behave like computer industry?

[peteradio]

> A ticket that cost $600 in 1980 dollars goes for $300 today.

I'm not sure that is a universal positive.

[jonny_eh]

If you're talking about airline passengers, they have no choice in which plane they fly in.

[avs733]

not only no choice...

No information - They rarely have any information (you have to go through several menus to find out your plane on most sites). They don't know when / where the plane was last serviced [0].

No framework - Your average consumer of air travel is not equipped to accurately evaluate that information should they even have it. (c.f., 'if it's not Boeing I a'int going [1]). They cannot make rational and informed decisions without information and a rational decision making framework

No control - They have no control over whether that plane is changed for operational reasons even if they have the information and a framework to evaluate it. You may not even know until you are onboard with the door shut unless you are really well informed about airplanes that the plane model has changed (e.g., I avoid A321s because

No recourse - Even if they consciously choose a plane based on information and an informed framework and then it gets changed what can you do? Are you even going to know until you get on the plane at which point what do you do? Do you think you get a refund?

[0] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19780372

[tedunangst]

It's not hard to see which planes fly which routes.