Watch: The Economics of Airline Class

Airplanes are interesting economic beasts. You can have two people sitting in side-by-side seats who have paid completely different prices for those seats, because they bought tickets at different times and from different vendors. You can also have people sitting a few rows up who pay huge multiples for the privilege. What's the airline getting out of these price differences, and why does anybody pay so much?

In one British Airways example cited in the Wendover Productions video below, "The 14 passengers at the front of the plane bring in more money for the airline than the 122 in the back [in the Economy section]."

Settle in for a detailed discussion of how airplane class economics work today, how we got here, and what the Concorde had to do with all of this. Enjoy:

Related: Casey Neistat takes a $21,000 ultra-premium airplane journey. The seat comes with its own cosmetics.