The end of cheap airfare

My family had had season tickets to the giants since some time around WW2. Everytime they was an upgrade, they jumped on it. We ended up with tix on the 45 yard line ten rows off the field. At the old stadium, we paid $135 att icket in the last season. For the new stadium, the Giants demanded PSLs. For 95% of the stadium, the cost was $5000, but for a few thousand seats, it was either $20,000 or $50,000. Our seats were designated as Ultra Premium and in addition to the $50,000 PSL, the cost jumped to $650 per game. On the Giants side, they did help us arrange a swap where someone with cheaper seats swapped with us and paid both PSLs so that we paid zero. On the bad side, we'd been in the same seats for thirty plus years and had made friends with almost everyone in our section. Now we are scattered all over the stadium. This never would have happened if Wellington mara were still alive. He was the greatest owner a team could ever ask for.

I split Jet tickets with a friend who had the seats since the jets played at Shea stadium. I remember buying Jet tickets in the mid 90's for $25 and they were on the lower level 15 yard line. They were still $40 the last year Hess owned the team. They jumped to $80 by the last season they played in the Meadowlands.

You were also required to buy 2 useless pre-season games at full price

New stadium PSl was $7,500 per seat plus $125? per game. We moved to the upper deck to the 45 yard line for $125 plus $25 for parking, plus tolls. Total cost to go to a game was nearly $300.

Between the late starts, night games, crappy weather & traffic jams it is no longer worth it. Bought a big hi-def set.

The Super Bowl will be in NY next February; weather should be a balmy 15 degrees (and that stadium is windy) & hopefully no snow.

I'm not too worried about the merger. Airlines have a long history of shooting themselves in the foot resulting in lower airfares. When times are good they go out and buy 100 planes and add lots of seat capacity. And then economic times turn bad and they cant fill all those seats resulting in dirt cheap fares.

Usually thats when you'll see a bunch of the smaller airlines go out of business and the big airlines file Chapter 11 to reorganize the debt they took on for all those planes.....and then the cycle starts over.

The only time airlines can really manipulate the price of their tickets is at small airports where they purchase all the gates. Thats why ticket prices in/out of places like Pensacola, FL cost more than tickets in/out of places like Chicago. Beyond that ticket prices are a complete commodity and at the mercy of Expedia.com