Basic Economy or Misery Class?

American airline carriers have been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently. But now American Airlines, Delta, and United are hoping to claw back some of its reputation by offering a new seating class: Basic Economy.

So what does this mean? Well the cons are you can only take one small piece of hand luggage onto the plane with you, have no access to overhead storage bins, a lower hold allowance, and are not eligible for upgrades, flight changes, or refunds.

The benefits are you get a flight for the cost of a budget carrier on a major carrier. Your seat comes with all the standard economy class equipment, in-flight entertainment, seat pitch, room, and so on. You also get complimentary free on-board snacks and drinks service.

So should you consider flying Basic Economy?

Well the first thing that has to be said is that this class is only available on domestic US routes. So if you were thinking you could get a cheaper transcontinental flight think again.

But really the question has to be is flying Basic Economy cheaper than flying on a low cost airline? The truth is it depends on which route and which airline but in most cases it is still $10 more expensive than its competitors and customers using the service have their complaints. The American Airlines first rolled out Basic Economy in February on select routes and immediately found issues with the system. One of the biggest complaints by people was the inability to change seats. Seats are allocated by airline staff at the gate and it isn’t uncommon for families and groups to be split up. One passenger took to Twitter in a rage about being separated from his six-year-old son only to be informed by the airline that his ticket didn’t allow him to contest the seat allocation.

Furthermore, while American Airlines (the most recent carrier to offer the service) is happy to advertise the pros and cons of travelling in its new class, they fail to mention any of the negatives that passengers are going to experience at their departure airports. Basic Economy is only allocated one check-in desk, even though the class only occupies the rear ten rows of each airliner and thus has fewer customers. Passengers have complained that queue times are often in excess of 45 minutes.

But surely the wait is worth it for the lower fare right? Maybe not. Politico reports that actually travelling in what it has been dubbed "misery class" is on average costing travellers $15-$30 more than standard economy. The lack of hand luggage space and reduced hold allowance has meant that many passengers have to pay excess fees to place items in the hold. Furthermore in an effort to avoid being allocated any random seat, passengers are selecting their seats in advance, something offered by American Airlines and United, for an extra $25 per seat.

So in this case why not just fly economy? It seems that this is what the airlines are encouraging. To make the new class experience as miserable as possible to force returning customers to pay the extra fare for economy. And it is now an extra fare. Both Delta and United have upped their economy fares by 1% now that it is no longer the cheapest flying option, and with American Airlines now joining this club you can expect their fares to be on the rise soon too.

So what gives? Why have the airlines gone to the hassle of introducing and marketing a new class if they are deliberately trying to cause it to flop?

Gary Leff, who writes the View from the Wing travel blog, writes:

“To be 100 percent clear, the airlines are not offering lower fares than they were offering before basic economy was introduced. They decided that they wanted to give you less something approximating what those low-cost carriers were providing at that price point in hopes that you would pay more to get the kinds of services that you were used to from those airlines."

So in short this isn’t a cheaper class, more an elaborate excuse for the airline to charge more for an existing product.