Jimmah Carter deregulating airlines bus lines trucking lines banking AND LETTING LIAR jet fuel companies blame OPEC for price gouging all fuels....the same plane Des Moines to San Diego was 60 dollars military standby NEVER BUMPED THEN, NOW IS 600 buck$ on a discounted fare often bumped..... ReaGUN escalated the illegal wars for imported fuels ON BORROWED TRILLIONS 1982....his evil body should be exhumed and cremated with tumbleweeds or California scrub brush tinder IN SHAME : not honor next to actress Nancy

I think Spongebobs video below explains it really well, highly recommended.

You have been flying nonstop for 100 years and you wondered where your money has gone? You must have A LOT of air miles piled up. How soon after Wright brothers did you start this 100 year ordeal?

The mystery to me is that planes are fully booked now a days and the airlines complain of not making enough money. I find that a bit contradictory. I would believe it if planes were flying empty but that's not the case. Airports seem to be crowded 24/7

They cost a lot less in inflation-adjusted dollars than they did in, say, 1960. You can fly between some commuter hubs for $50.

When I was your age (okay Boomer) you couldn't fly anywhere for less than hundreds of dollars.

What bothers me more than the cost (although the difference between coach and first class is absurd enough that I'll probably die not having the opportunity to be underwhelmed by the experience of flying first class) is the level of service. For those few hundred dollars you at least got real silverware and fairly interesting food (no extra cost) and it was enough of an event that people dressed up for it. Now it's shrink-wrapped chicken breast-like meat heated in a microwave that you actually have to pay extra for. On one flight, due to a servicing mishap on the ground, we were given a gooey stroganof-like dish and NO utensils with which to eat it!

At our regional airport, it's not at all unusual to book a flight weeks in advance, and to be sent home to try again tomorrow because the flight was cancelled. It's always alleged weather or mechanical problems and of course NEVER has anything to do with their not wanting to run a flight with too few people on it. Yeah right. I drive 70 miles to a larger airport so I have a fighting chance of getting to my destination on time. And for business trips I leave a day in advance, just in case. I'm too old to arrive at 2 am the morning before I'm supposed to be scintillating in a business meeting.

Airlines suffer from the same problems as most service businesses -- they are responsive only to their shareholders and not to their customers, employees, or vendors. And they can't see past the next quarter or even the next month for the most part. So leg space keeps shrinking, employees keep getting underpaid and disempowered to do their jobs, and general hilarity ensues.

Heck, even the latest innovations like in-flight Wi-Fi don't work half the time and don't work well the rest of the time.

There are numerous reasons. Key is capitalism; these organizations exist for profit. They make sure that they can earn the largest profit they can. Lack of regulation in recent years, ability to merge, among many factors.

Supply and demand.

Why are car prices so ridiculously high?

Airline economics are far more complicated now than ever before. See the Wendover video posted by @Spongebob. And check out Wendover's other videos for similar kinds of interesting information.

Here is an informative video

Greed

Greed.