Are economy flights dying out in the computer age?

The movie I have chosen only entertains me moderately. The background noise is enormous despite the full volume of the headphones, so that I can't understand everything during longer dialogs in which people speak at normal intensity. I have the feeling that the headphones amplify the flying noise, a monotonous hiss. The display shows me an altitude of almost 12,000 meters and a speed of over 900 kilometers per hour. At the top of the screen, a small plane moves and colors the white bar behind it blue. A time display shows the time flown and the time still to be covered. Yes, technical gadgets have changed enormously since the computer age. 

Departure Tahiti

I fall into a kind of daydream. You know how it is. You can't sleep because your surroundings keep you awake, even though you're actually dog-tired. In "pig class" - more civilized people than me also call it "economy class" - the seats end just behind the buttocks. The rows of seats are so narrow that a person of normal height has to rest their knees against the seat in front. And then this noise, loud, monotonous and incessant. I am reminded of Devil's Island off French Guiana, where prisoners were tortured inhumanely. Of course, times have changed and so have the methods of torture, but people have always been very perfidious - in my case it's Air France - in coming up with ways of torturing someone. Paying for it is also nothing new. They try to bribe me with a service on board. The crew make every effort. Nevertheless, I wonder whether this is one of the methods of torture. So to speak, if it doesn't die due to the environmental conditions we have created, we make it with the food or, as they used to put it during the pandemic: died with or without a flight attendant. Yes, in the computer age, processes are trimmed to an optimum in order to achieve the greatest possible profit from a market price. Economy, after all! I calm down a little and think to myself: if a hundred other people can do it, so can you. Another five hours to LA. Yes, that's another development: people no longer say Los Angeles, they say LA, because everything is faster in the computer age, people are more impatient with their surroundings and everyone knows what LA means. So what! Or, as we recently heard from a German army general: "All in". Economy just like that! You get what you pay for, so stop complaining. I'm not complaining at all. On the contrary, I'm glad that no one has yet come up with the idea of flying people halfway around the world for that price and not putting them in the luggage compartment. Because one thing is also clear: the low price can only be achieved without luggage. You only pay slightly less for your bags and suitcases in the hold than for yourself. That's economy! In the meantime, however, Air France's torture methods are having an effect. The economy class is dying out. More and more people can afford business class. They are taking what I call an indulgence and sparing themselves the torture of economy. They try to give passengers as much privacy as possible in closed-off areas. Small cells, open at the top, with seats that can easily be converted into a reclining area. They are reminiscent of the soot-blackened cells of the Ile Royal off French Guyana. Of course, the guest sits or reclines much more comfortably, isolated from all the other passengers. In today's computer age, this is entirely intentional, as there is no longer any dialog between people anyway. How can you, when you walk through life with earplugs or headphones and can no longer understand the other person, let alone consciously perceive them? Of course, even in business class you can't make the noise of a flight disappear and you have to protect yourself somehow: Why shouldn't you at least do this in a comfortable posture? The additional space required for this service naturally comes at a price and is 2.5 times the economy price. 

Waiting for the next flight

The concept works. The amount of space occupied by business class in an aircraft is increasing compared to the past. Economy is receding further and further into the background and now only occupies the rear third of the aircraft, at least on long-haul flights. To introduce people to this higher price class, Air France has come up with the Prime Economy class. A class that offers the comfort of Business and the service of Economy. So if you can't afford or don't want to pay the full fare, you simply pay double and are freed from the cramped posture that forces you to sit down and can stretch out and be transported comfortably across the globe at 900 kilometers per hour. But the business guest also has to get off the plane in LA and go through the US immigration authorities and body check back onto the plane to then take another ten-hour flight to Paris. My neighbor flies on to Johannesburg and I am glad that I am only an hour's flight away from Stuttgart, which I reach after a total of 32 hours. With the so-called rag picker, the last plane of the day, from Paris to Stuttgart. The name is not at all justified. The rows of seats in Economy are far apart, the seating area is larger and more comfortable and the service on this flight is impeccable. So there are differences between Economy on long-haul routes and Economy on short-haul routes. Nevertheless, the question remains: are economy flights dying out in the age of the computer? Sometimes I wish back to the times before the computer age. With this in mind fair winds and keep a stiff upper lip.