What do airline passengers really want — besides a good fare?

What’s the first thing you look for in an airline ticket?

If you said, “a low price,” you’re absolutely right. In a survey of air travelers conducted last week, 77 percent said they consider the fare first.

But airlines have used that answer to justify cutting customer service and “unbundling” prices — removing everything but a base fare — without asking the simple question: What else do you want?

So we decided to dig a little deeper. In a survey of more than 800 readers of this site and Consumer Traveler, we continued the conversation. Here are the results.

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Virgin America: The airline that deregulation forgot?

Someone apparently forgot to tell Virgin America about that whole deregulation thing.

You know, the sad story of how America’s legacy carriers, who once competed for your business based on service, began thinking of their seats as commodities – and us as cargo.

Virgin America is unashamedly retro, when if comes to service.

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