Maybe, but the economics of budget airline service are solid, so we will undoubtedly get new entrants. What wasn't solid was Spirit's outright disdain for their customers. It was completely unnacceptable how they operated, and the market has spoken as such. Even Frontier has humans you can talk to. Being stranded by one of Spirit's constant delayed flights with no recourse but an automated chatbot should have been illegal. It reached a point where your stated departure time was really no more than a vague suggestion of the time window you might be leaving around. They pushed the trend of service enshittification to its extreme conclusion and people finally had enough.
I fly direct from London to Vegas occasionally. The upside is that going through immigration is trivial -- of 270 people on a flight, 265 go to the "foreign passports" line. The downside is the 15 minute wait after getting to the gate for the police to come and arrest the people who were fist fighting in the aisle.
Around The World with Louis C.K. | Jim Norton Can't Save You EP 68
https://youtu.be/z0cypFadE3k?t=2394
In a podcast, Louis C.K. has remarked on his observations of "functioning poverty" during his travels in India, contrasting it with the homelessness and societal dysfunction he sees in New York City.
But I think the notable aspect is not that they have recourse, it’s that the economics properly scales down. Can’t afford 20 cigarettes? An Indian shop will sell you 10. Can’t afford 10? They’ll sell you 1. Can’t afford 1? They’ll sell you half a cigarette.
Can’t afford clean water? They’ll sell you mildly dirty water. Can’t afford mildly dirty water? They’ll sell you dirty water.
Can’t afford a modern, well built, safe car? How about one with 3 wheels? No doors? No AC? 10 MPG? The crumpling structure of a tin can? An engine with less HP than a lawnmower?
In the US, there’s an arbitrary cutoff where you simply aren't allowed to be sold goods and services by anyone in normal society. It’s not about giving recourse; it’s about not actively trying to ostracize them as a separate class of humanity.
You have to actively work to stop “functional poverty” from existing. In any normal setup, it’s just more of the same economy as otherwise.
His heart may be in the right place but he may be too rich for this conversation. He comes off as more than a little bit out of touch here
Why no discussion of "yet another victory" for antitrust? Was 2024 really that long ago?
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...
This works even better when the train station is closer to downtown than the airport.