Air travel has never been for the poors.

I don’t know, maybe it’s hard for people to hear that, but the reality is that zipping through the air at 550 mph and 35,000 feet was never going to be a cheap endeavor.

When you challenge the limits of physics while having to create a comfortable environment for us fragile humans things get expensive really fast.

As my father told me when I was a little boy; “air travel is a special thing and you need to make your best presentation of yourself at the airport.” You don’t just go to the airport looking and behaving any kind of way—for a number of reasons.

Now that a new bottleneck has been created by the fuel squeeze (airlines could have avoided this), carriers are rapidly moving upscale because a fundamental truth still exists:

It’s much easier to get money from rich people than it is from poor people.

So if you create products, services, and most importantly experiences that rich people want they are going to give you money.

I learned this first hand back in the early 2000s after 9-11. The business was in a slump and I watched certain carriers expand the premium classes, lower seat counts and market heavily to corporate customers. It worked and profits soared.

Now the bottom line of all this is the same as what @CoachGregAdams tells you about mating and dating. You’re going to get priced out if you don’t Boss up. The gap is widening between the elite (in my view normal) level of experiences in life and what the beggars and complainers get. Airlines rushing upscale is just one more example.

So, which way gentlemen: Boss life or normie life?

Good luck

https://www.reuters.com/business/caviar-champagne-porsche-ride-aviation-widens-its-class-divide-2026-10-27/