I’m not sure I agree. With flights, wealthy people would just charter a private flight or travel on a luxury or boutique airline, apart from the traditional option of first-class.
What it sounds like you are saying is that there is a group of middle class or upper middle class people who won’t choose to spend the amounts required for the luxury option (the equivalent of not taking the bus), and yet feel grumpy that the slightly higher prices they would prefer to pay end up pricing almost all flights out of the market for other middle class or lower middle class travelers.
“Cleanly separate the cheap vs comfortable use cases” seems simple: airline economics just implies that the prices for the comfortable (“not taking the bus”) option are staggeringly high, and that so many customers strongly prefer the cheap (“just treat the airplane like it’s the subway”) option, that airlines must structure the offerings around that fact.
I don't wholly disagree with you. It's partly that the true service upgrades for flying--even if you just talk commercial--are priced at a completely different level from economy even though they maybe cost about 2x more per passenger.
That said, if you have Pre-check, airline status, airline club membership, maybe pay a bit more, etc. in practice you get a bit more legroom, early boarding, (usually) fairly fast security, etc. So, in that sense, there is a mild upgrade option relative to barebones cheapest tickets. (Depending on the airline.)
What it sounds like you are saying is that there is a group of middle class or upper middle class people who won’t choose to spend the amounts required for the luxury option (the equivalent of not taking the bus), and yet feel grumpy that the slightly higher prices they would prefer to pay end up pricing almost all flights out of the market for other middle class or lower middle class travelers.
“Cleanly separate the cheap vs comfortable use cases” seems simple: airline economics just implies that the prices for the comfortable (“not taking the bus”) option are staggeringly high, and that so many customers strongly prefer the cheap (“just treat the airplane like it’s the subway”) option, that airlines must structure the offerings around that fact.