Is First-Class Flying Getting Cheaper?

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Back when I used to fly a lot, I always wondered why business class seats were so much more expensive than coach. They weren’t twice as expensive, as you’d expect, they were four times, maybe five times as expensive. Why?

I don’t fly very much anymore so I don’t care as much. However, a few months ago, when I flew to Bogotá, Avianca Airlines offered me a first class, fully-reclining pod seat for $700, compared to $400 for a coach seat. What a bargain! But I figured I had just lucked out with some kind of Avianca deal and thought no more about it.

Today, though, I booked a flight home on American. The coach fare was $587, which is really $617 when you add in my one checked bag. A first-class seat was $694 with free checked bags. When did this start happening? Is it because I booked a flight that was only two days away? Have first/business class seats gotten cheaper? Did I just get lucky? Or what?

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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