rogman wrote:Do some of you actually believe Killington subsidizes some people at the expense of others? I suppose you also believe the first class passengers on a plane are "subsidizing" those in coach? That's not how it works. It's all about maximizing yield.
This is probably a close comparison, with a few differences.
The first class passenger gets more leg room (Different seat pitch) and more width (2 vs 3 seats). I bet it varies by airline and route, but my gut tells me the $ per floor square foot is higher for first class than coach. If the airline could sell an entire planeful of first class every flight, there would be no coach seats. They can't, so coach fills the rest of the seats. The ski analogy would be a first class ski pass gets extra room, you would get a max load of only 5 people per gondola or 3 people per chair with your first class pass.
In skiing, we all get the same lift and slopes, ie the same product. This is closer to the fact that you paid $200 for your seat 6 months in advance and the person next to you paid $350 last week. Is that $350 person subsidizing you? Yes, it's yield management, but at the end of the day the revenue for the flight needs to pay the gas and salaries. The fact that some are willing to pay more for the short notice purchase doesn't invalidate the conclusion that they are carrying more freight than you are. I think the $124 walk up rate most certainly "subsidizes" our $940 pass rate. If the full boat walk ups left the planet, our season pass rates would most certainly have to go up. That's a subsidy in my book, it just isn't government regulated, it's market regulated. Maximizing yield means charging one segment more for a perceived advantage, and that allows you to compete better. (Because your competition is doing their best to do the same thing) We get to choose if we want to pay more for that perceived advantage, but that doesn't mean that by doing so there isn't someone carrying more freight.
The definition of subsidy is
to pay [or reduce] part of the cost of producing (something) to reduce prices for the buyer.
Where this comparison fails is you cannot change your age. In fact, the law prohibits age discrimination. I'm not sure how this industry practice is exempt, other than maybe it just hasn't been tested in court.
The reason has merit; attract and forge a loyalty to a demographic that hasn't reached their full earning potential. But we all make a myriad of choices in career, (schoolteacher vs lawyer) location (NYC vs northern Berkshires) family lifestyle (single vs DINKs vs 5 kids) house size, car driven, cost of our jeans and cut of our steak. I'm not sure how you're going to dice that up to come up with the price of a pass. And what of the 25 year old that didn't go to college, became a plumbing contractor, and now makes more than his college degreed contemporary, plus the plumber has no debt? Do we charge non college non tuition indebted people more? Again, you can keep dicing this ad infinitum.
In my view, outside of any age discrimination claim, the resort gets to charge what they want. If they want to charge double for skiers vs snowboarders, or for hats vs helmets, or charge by the vertical foot skied, that's up to them. Pay the tab or go elsewhere. It's not like the price of a burger is exactly the same everywhere up and down the access road.
