Airline Seat Shortage: Say Goodbye to Cheap Flights

Sept. 23, 2009 — -- Sounds crazy, but -- could airlines ever run out of seats? Well, yes, they could. If you think you'll always be able to fly wherever and whenever you like, well -- this article's for you.

Naturally I will begin tackling this ominous subject by talking about children's games. Specifically, musical chairs.

You remember the game: children marching around a circle of chairs to music, but there aren't enough chairs so when the music stops, the odd person is out.

Unfortunately, we're being forced to play musical chairs all over again, only this time, the airlines control the music and the chairs we circle are disappearing passenger seats.

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It was bound to happen. Carriers have been cutting seats by reducing the number of flights they fly for the past few years, in a frantic effort to stay afloat: it's called "cutting capacity" and it's done because flying too many empty seats is a money loser.

Now as demand has waned airlines are prepared to drop even more seats -- tossing them overboard -- crowding us passengers ever closer to a sardine configuration. Bloomberg News cites a parallel from the 1940's: they say what's happening in the airline industry with seat cuts today is the "deepest retrenchment since World War II."

And it could get worse.

It's already pretty bad, though. Ask Dan Thomsen.

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Thomsen, a Hollywood location photographer, says flying in the "old days" was better because you "could stretch out on all those empty seats." Nowadays, he rarely flies -- to be fair, that's partly so he can get a closer look at location possibilities, but it's also to avoid "the hassle of flying" and he proved that this summer by traveling 1,200 miles for a job -- from Los Angeles to Montana -- by car.