Economic Concepts in Everyday Life

Task I – Economic Concepts in Everyday Life

Why does airline food taste bad?

On February, I had a flight to Australia and I found out that the meal provided by airline was not tasty as what I expected since I paid for higher ticket prices. Everyone complains about food that provided in airplane taste bad. Why does airline food taste bad? It is a question that mostly all of the travelers will ask themselves at the same point. Every meal served by airline, no matter what it is – fish, chicken, pasta or even fried rice – it seems undeniably taste unpalatable than on-the-ground restaurants. According to Grant Mickels (Peterson, B., 2014), an executive chef, he says that “the ability to taste salty and sweet flavors will decrease at attitude due to the combination of air pressure and low humidity, our tongue tactile will be affected.”

If on-the-ground restaurants dare to serve such food, they might receive a lot of complaints about taste or quality of food, end up they would go bankrupt in a moment. People’s complaints assume that airline should serve food as delicious as what they have in restaurant because they pay so much for ticket. Here is a question, why doesn’t airline makes improvement on food in order to fulfill consumer needs?

As flying become more affordable, the food quality decrease as well. Basically, airlines just reheat food that’s already cooked on the ground. People might pay more for getting an extra seat for long-haul aircraft. Unless travelling with partner, some people might pay extra seats ahead of time as you are not guaranteed who will sit next to you. However, people rather willing pay for extra seats than pay more to get better food, in the term of higher single ticket prices than two tickets. Scarcity occurs when people has limited resources and forces to make trade-offs to satisfy their unlimited needs and wants. Insufficient income forces people make choice on choosing only one thing means giving up something else. In economics, the term used to reflect on obtaining some alternatives must be given up one item – another application concepts of opportunity cost. For instance, if consumer is not willing to pay higher ticket price, they will lose the benefits of getting better food.

In addition, making decision requires comparing costs and benefits of the alternatives occur of its actions. Economists make use of the ‘marginal idea’, for example, what are the benefit of consuming a little extra of a product and what are the cost? Rational decision maker will weigh the marginal benefit received with its marginal cost including opportunity cost. The cost benefit principle can be defined as an individual takes an action when the extra benefits gained are at least as great as the extra costs. Should airline improve the quality of the meals? B(X) represents the meal same quality as in restaurant on the ground whereas C(X) represents the cost for providing a tasty food on plane much higher than restaurants on the ground. The benefits of quality food are depending on what cost passengers willing to pay for the ticket prices. For example, if you could have a restaurant quality meal by paying extra $5-%10 in cost, most people probably be pleased to pay.

In contrast, it is difficult to prepare restaurant meal in plane at above 30 000 feet and it would be much more costly if set up a kitchen in the plane. Yes, it could be done if remove more than 20 seats in airplane to install a well-equipped kitchen prepare fresh food as whatever restaurant on-ground does. Hence, airline has to pay more for hiring staff and chef, ensuring the fire safety in plane, spending more on ingredients and so on. For all the complaints about low quality of food, only few people would be willing to pay more to get better food. Airline, therefore, be doomed to remain serve unpalatable food because the costs are overweigh than the benefits.

Lastly, airlines don’t make improvement on quality of food because they are well measured that cost of charging is much higher than on-the-ground restaurant but getting the same benefits as them as more than half people are not willing to pay for expensive ticket.

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