$464 from NY to LA............in 1975

[COOPERVANE]

Just finished watching "Airport '75" (yeah, I'm bored) and found one particular line interesting. A pax was complaining about his snack.

"$464 for a ticket and I get stale nuts!!"

This was made in 1975

Care to guess what the ticket costs now?......................................... $134.00 on Delta w/no advance pricing.

I had forgotten how much tickets were in the 70's

 

[Blue Dude]

Adjusted for inflation through 2008, that's $1837. And then deregulation happened and here we are.

 

[hockeypilot44]

Adjusted for inflation through 2008, that's $1837. And then deregulation happened and here we are.

This is not directed at you. If you are working for a regional and uneducated, then you probably would not be an airline pilot had it not been for deregulation.

 

[semperfido]

thank Alfred E. Kahn

 

[Blue Dude]

This is not directed at you. If you are working for a regional and uneducated, then you probably would not be an airline pilot had it not been for deregulation.

I'm not but that's a true statement. There are a heck of a lot more pilot jobs now than then. But they're worth a lot less too.

 

[jetjock6]

Just finished watching "Airport '75" (yeah, I'm bored) and found one particular line interesting. A pax was complaining about his snack.

"$464 for a ticket and I get stale nuts!!"

This was made in 1975

Care to guess what the ticket costs now?......................................... $134.00 on Delta w/no advance pricing.

I had forgotten how much tickets were in the 70's

For $134.00 on Delta you also get the same flight attendant from 1975.

 

[Motown]

I know that it's popular to complain about falling ticket prices, but I'm not sure the data backs up the emotion. Dig around this website and you'll see that fares have risen steadily over the past 14 years (in spite of a sharp decline right after 9/11):

http://www.bts.gov/xml/atpi/src/index.xml

These statistics only show data going back to 1995. In 1957 my mother earned enough at Woolworth's in 2-weeks (as a high school student earning minimum wage) to make it worthwhile to delay her trip to the Alaska Territory and buy a plane ticket LA to Seattle to join her mother & sister en-route (they were driving). The following year she and her best friend bought $10 round trip plane tickets between Miami and Havana during their post-graduation cross country trip together (that's less than $75 in today's dollars).

I understand that the AVERAGE ticket price seems much lower today than we think it should be, but I suspect that may be because the 3-passengers who each paid $3600 for the last minute walk-up fare aren't there anymore rather than the other 90-people on the flight somehow paying $120 less each (because the statistics show that they're paying more, not less).

 

[KCPilot]

For $134.00 on Delta you also get the same flight attendant from 1975.

Now that is funny and so true!

 

[dispatchguy]

You also get the same peanuts as from 1975 as well...

 

[MD11Drvr]

For $134.00 on Delta you also get the same flight attendant from 1975.

More than likely a little wider and a whole lot more pissed off......

 

[jetjock6]

More than likely a little wider and a whole lot more pissed off......

For our purposes here, we'll say they have been adjusted for inflation.

 

[Whine Lover]

$464 circa 1975 is about $1900 these days.


http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm


I remember flying Delta in 1976 for $200 one-way PWM-DAB ( via ATL of course) .

What was Jet-A per gallon back then? Maybe 32 cents?

Whats that ticket cost now?

Oh, not enough to cover the fuel let alone, labor, infrastructure etc. ?

Gotcha'. Makes sense to me....


YKW

 

[Ty Webb]

There are only a few things that have gone down in cost over the past 25 years . . . . . long distance phone service, computers, cell phones . . . . and airline seats.

 

[njcapt]

There are only a few things that have gone down in cost over the past 25 years . . . . . long distance phone service, computers, cell phones . . . . and airline seats.

... and porn.

 

[Whine Lover]

" a few things that have gone down..."

Let's not bring Ex-wives into this.

Funny, how they did before and after marriage, but not during, if I recall correctly.


!


YKW

 

[paulsalem]

What was Jet-A per gallon back then? Maybe 32 cents?

Whats that ticket cost now?

Oh, not enough to cover the fuel let alone, labor, infrastructure etc. ?

Gotcha'. Makes sense to me....


YKW

I use to think the same way regarding ticket prices. Until I read in a maco economics book that, price is not determined by cost of production, rather by supply and demand in the market place.

Really a simple, and obvious statement, but when I read it, everything clicked. From ticket prices, to oil, to pilot wages.

 

[wms]

The airlines are hinting at a bailout. We can expect an airline Czar to solve all our problems!

 

[Colonel Savage]

Advance purchase in 1976 UAL coach DEN-SFO-DEN for $186, or $696 in today's dollars.

 

[jmreii]

This is not directed at you. If you are working for a regional and uneducated, then you probably would not be an airline pilot had it not been for deregulation.

Very little code sharing back in the day with the commuters that were around, and most people only flew on a special occasion. The airlines were losing plenty of money back in the day is the reason some famous airline names are no longer with us.

 

[Saluki Dawg]

Just finished watching "Airport '75" (yeah, I'm bored) and found one particular line interesting. A pax was complaining about his snack.

"$464 for a ticket and I get stale nuts!!"

This was made in 1975

Care to guess what the ticket costs now?......................................... $134.00 on Delta w/no advance pricing.

I had forgotten how much tickets were in the 70's

I'm going to outgeek you. That line was from the original Airport made in 1970! That makes that statement even worse. Try running the numbers on what that ticket would run now 40 years later!