> Airlines have nothing to gain by making bigger seats ...
This is only because airlines are not obliged to -- or have not yet engaged in a marketing war with each other by -- advertising seat dimensions, either during the booking process, or via more general marketing.
I expect it'd be more useful, way more effective, and naturally less cost, to do it during the booking phase. While this may seem like it'd risk losing customers, word of mouth is powerful in this sector.
A succinct addenda such as 'compared to Xyz airline that has 50mm less space', and a hover-over picture that shows someone being annoyed by the less spacious seat, perhaps being served a meal of dubious origin by someone wearing Xyz uniform, just to drive it home. I should be in advertising.
(My understanding is that 'attack' advertising is more acceptable within the US. Here in AU we're unlikely to see this kind of thing due to a dearth of carrier choice. No idea about other parts of the world.)
The conventional wisdom on this is that historically, any attempt by airlines to differentiate their economy class product on any dimension other than price has failed. There's always a vocal subset of people complaining, but when push comes to shove, the large majority of customers will pick the flight with the lowest price.
Arguably we will eventually reach some level of service that is so unbelievably crappy that people will be willing to pay more to avoid it, but the success of the low cost carriers suggests to me that we're not there yet.
You're likely right - I've heard this observation before as well, though while I'm not especially wealthy, I'm happy to pay a slight premium for more comfort. Most of the people I know are in a similar situation. Clearly a lot of people either are willing to race to the bottom, or just aren't informed about the options -- which comes back to the earlier point, which is the information around seat size differentiation isn't being propagated, and/or there isn't much differentiation.
It'd be an interesting experiment for airlines to kit out planes to include a range of economy seat sizes, with minor price differences.
Claims that this would be overly complex are discounted by observing there's a half dozen variations of ticket classes already, including sub-categories of economy.
Matching seat sizes to people's heights would be the pinnacle of social planning -- as a 188cm tall person, walking past exit row seats occupied by people whose legs don't touch the floor rankles every time.
JetBlue immediately comes to mind as offering large number of DirecTV channels and Southwest heavily advertises two free bags, so it seems like marketing campaigns based on things other than price work, just take a while to instill.
2 free bags is a proxy for money (usually $40-50 per checked bag), but your observation about inflight entertainment is interesting.
Virgin absolutely has an image edge because of their reputation for service. My Canadian friends hate Air Canada's reliability apparently, but it's such an upgrade vs the US majors for me that I go out of my way to choose Air Canada when I'm making a trip up North. Hopefully these things will start to matter more...
This is only because airlines are not obliged to -- or have not yet engaged in a marketing war with each other by -- advertising seat dimensions, either during the booking process, or via more general marketing.
I expect it'd be more useful, way more effective, and naturally less cost, to do it during the booking phase. While this may seem like it'd risk losing customers, word of mouth is powerful in this sector.
A succinct addenda such as 'compared to Xyz airline that has 50mm less space', and a hover-over picture that shows someone being annoyed by the less spacious seat, perhaps being served a meal of dubious origin by someone wearing Xyz uniform, just to drive it home. I should be in advertising.
(My understanding is that 'attack' advertising is more acceptable within the US. Here in AU we're unlikely to see this kind of thing due to a dearth of carrier choice. No idea about other parts of the world.)