Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Flying used to feel exciting. Now it feels like extortion. Smaller seats, higher prices, endless fees, and no free bags. It’s not your imagination — flying has genuinely gotten worse. Airlines made $33 billion last year just from baggage fees, and the crazy part is that baggage was only the beginning. Seat selection, early boarding, legroom — every part of the experience has been monetized. But this didn’t happen overnight. Airlines have always been terrible businesses, running on razor-thin margins while battling expensive planes, volatile fuel prices, and debt. When the 2008 crisis hit, they got desperate. Instead of raising ticket prices, they just started moving the costs somewhere else. Then came smaller seats, fewer perks, and the rise of “pain point” pricing — making the cheapest seats unbearable so you’d pay more to escape misery. Even Southwest, the one airline that stood for fairness, finally gave in and started charging for bags. This video breaks down how air travel went from a symbol of freedom to a corporate trap.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hariharan-jayakumar-silo
Instagram: instagram.com/hariharan.jayakumar
Timestamps:
0:00 - The State Of Airlines
0:35 - Fees Rising
4:36 - Seats Shrinking
8:53 - Anger Growing
Resources:
pastebin.com/YdgkVcek
Flying used to feel exciting. Now it feels like extortion. Smaller seats, higher prices, endless fees, and no free bags. It’s not your imagination — flying has genuinely gotten worse. Airlines made $33 billion last year just from baggage fees, and the crazy part is that baggage was only the beginning. Seat selection, early boarding, legroom — every part of the experience has been monetized. But this didn’t happen overnight. Airlines have always been terrible businesses, running on razor-thin margins while battling expensive planes, volatile fuel prices, and debt. When the 2008 crisis hit, they got desperate. Instead of raising ticket prices, they just started moving the costs somewhere else. Then came smaller seats, fewer perks, and the rise of “pain point” pricing — making the cheapest seats unbearable so you’d pay more to escape misery. Even Southwest, the one airline that stood for fairness, finally gave in and started charging for bags. This video breaks down how air travel went from a symbol of freedom to a corporate trap.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hariharan-jayakumar-silo
Instagram: instagram.com/hariharan.jayakumar
Timestamps:
0:00 - The State Of Airlines
0:35 - Fees Rising
4:36 - Seats Shrinking
8:53 - Anger Growing
Resources:
pastebin.com/YdgkVcek
