Summer travel boom does not increase airline revenues
Despite record demand for summer travel, airlines’ quarterly reports look anything but encouraging.
- The first commercial airlines in the USA have existed since 1914.
- Flying remained expensive and unreliable for decades.
- In 1978, the government decided to stop regulating airline prices and the industry underwent tremendous changes.
Flying is great, even if people complain about it. I know what you’re thinking: “Flying is terrible, it used to be better,” but that’s just not the right attitude.
That’s the point – and I’ve written about this before – that things weren’t actually better back then. People found things to complain about in the Golden Age, and now they just find other things to complain about.
Sure, flying used to be more luxurious, but it was also largely unaffordable.
“It was very expensive, luxurious by today’s standards. It wasn’t like being on a flying bus with no legroom. There were meals on every flight (and) plenty of legroom,” Andrew Parton, president of the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York, told me. “It was almost like someone’s living room, but it was extremely expensive.”
To understand how we got to the state of affairs in the industry that so many people hate today, it helps to look at how it all began. This week, we’re looking at how commercial airlines were founded in the United States, how they evolved, and where they’re headed.
Welcome on board.
How airlines started
Commercial fixed-wing aircraft airlines in the United States have existed since 1914, when the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line began scheduled service across Tampa Bay. The flights reduced travel time between the two cities from a two-hour boat ride to just 23 minutes. But flying remained an expensive and unreliable endeavor for decades.
“Many airlines came and went because the planes themselves were so inefficient. They had no chance of ever making money, there were no safety regulations. It wasn’t practical yet,” Bob van der Linden, curator of air transportation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, told me.
He said the first two decades were all about proving the viability of air transportation. First, the Post Office opened its own air routes for express mail. In 1926, the Post Office began contracting out those routes to commercial airlines, which encouraged competition and more efficient aircraft.
Only after the Second World War did flying become more commonplace, says van der Linden, but passenger numbers were still limited.
“Everything was regulated. Prices were all regulated by the federal government,” he said. “Even though aviation was much more common and many more people were flying, it was still largely limited to the upper middle class and the wealthy.”
This is, of course, a gross simplification of the history of airlines, but to understand their development, it is important to know the beginnings of the industry.
Altitude: The passenger at the window controls the window blinds. End of story.
How aviation got here
Until 1978, interstate and international air routes and fares were controlled by the federal government through the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB).
Even though technology made planes faster and more efficient, flights remained expensive.
“It became increasingly obvious that the CAB regulator was falling behind on regulation. It would take years to approve new routes and fare structures,” said van der Linden.
In 1978, the government decided to stop regulating airline prices and the industry underwent tremendous changes.
“Hundreds of airlines were created after deregulation or went out of business and then went bankrupt,” van der Linden said. “If you flew between big cities, you could now get really, really cheap flights. If you flew between not so big cities, they charged what the market would bear and suddenly prices on shorter routes went up a lot. For many years it was just chaos.” Parton added that flights on some routes to smaller cities, like New York to Buffalo, could be – and still can be – more expensive than flights from the US to Europe.
“Competitive pressure has forced airlines to review their operations and even their routes,” he said.
Overall, flying is a much better business today in terms of dollars and cents than at almost any other time in history.
“Today, if you shop well, you could fly transcontinental, say from New York to San Francisco, for $300,” said van der Linden, noting that in dollar terms that is the same price as in 1930. “The price has not changed, but the value of the dollar has changed dramatically. In 1930, you could buy a car for $300.”
Of course, the democratization of air travel also brought about changes in the equipment of the aircraft and in the on-board service.
“All the amenities were included in the ticket price, including legroom,” van der Linden said. “People complain – these are the same people who complained about the bad food on the airlines before deregulation, and now they complain about not getting food… If you want more legroom, if you want a meal, you have to pay more, then sit in business class.”
What’s next for aviation?
If you look back at the beginnings of airlines in the United States, you can see that the development worked. The original goal when the Post Office established airmail routes and then contracted them out to commercial companies was to prove that air travel was economically viable and, in the long term, to make it accessible to as many people as possible while encouraging the development and refinement of new technologies.
Van der Linden and Parton agree that this is an indication of where things are headed. The next changes will likely be marginal, focusing on efficiency and environmental friendliness.
“Engines burn cleaner than ever before. At that point, it’s going to be an evolution,” van der Linden said. “Basically, airplanes now have a range that’s about as far as you really need to fly: you can do 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 miles. Purely from a common sense perspective, a commercial aircraft doesn’t need to fly more than 12,000 miles, because that’s half the world. If you need to fly further, go the other way.”
However, one thing is unlikely to change: for passengers, the main thing will continue to be the search for the cheapest ticket.
“We’re not going back to the glory days of flying, it’s still going to be a bit of a bus with wings,” Parton told me.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. Reach him at [email protected].
