"VainGlorious" kirjoitti
viestissä

Like it or not, people will pay a logarithmically higher airfare in
the hope that they will have a greater likelihood of enjoying a
civilized flight. Any thinking airline would be foolish to allow the
riff raff to invade the rarified air of business and 1st class.

I just did a quickie glace at ba.com. A midweek fortnight RT in March,
JNB-LHR:

Steerage: £170
Business/Club: £1600
1st: £1817

That's not the reason at all. Those paying the full price (business and
first class tickets mostly but economy class tickets as well). The
furnishing and level of "service" is one thing and full price and
"promotional" price tickets another thing. Those in hurry buy the full price
tickets because they are fully transferable even between the recognized
airlines while the latter tickets gives you access to one dedicated flight
(well, in theory anyways).

Because the price difference between full price and economy tickets are so
substantial - as seen above - companies typically book their businessmen to
economy class with a low price tickets. It happens every now and then that
businessmen lose their connecting flights for one reason or another and yet
it becomes much cheaper this way by buying a new set of tickets for the rest
of the journey rather than buying full price tickets in the first place. In
this way flexibility and time efficiency is lost to some degree. Another
trick to save money for short time hops between two airports is to buy two
return tickets (one starting from the origin and the other starting from the
destination) rather than only one.

This is one reason why airlines have "profiliated" their business class
ticket pricing (they have come down......). Naturally the overall demand is
one decisive factor. And because it is supposed to be increasing
dramatically in near future, there is little hope that air tickets will
become cheaper. Actually most likely the tendency will be the opposite.