Get the latest tech news

Is air travel getting worse?


More delays, fewer accidents, and lower prices

It’s difficult to tell if these extra anecdotes reflect a change in the true rate of airline accidents and delays or if they instead result from fluctuations in the human social layer where confirmation bias, saliency, and mimesis can draw our concern far out of proportion. To add to this mixed picture of air travel quality, airline fares have been falling recently, and growing less than overall CPI for even longer, so relative to other goods and rising incomes, airfare is much cheaper than it was in the 90s. The fact that all of the passenger increase has been borne through larger planes is evidence that the capacity of airport infrastructure is an extremely tight constraint on reliable air travel that all of the airlines are strategically adapting to avoid.

Get the Android app

Or read this on Hacker News

Read more on:

Photo of Delays

Delays

Photo of lower prices

lower prices

Photo of air travel

air travel

Related news:

News photo

Sopra Steria bags £115 million legacy extension from UK pensions department after delays to replacement ERP project

News photo

After Concord and a string of delays and cancellations, Sony admits PlayStation's live-service strategy is "not entirely going smoothly"

News photo

Star gets another lifeline as government delays $1000 gambling limit