Even Republicans don’t think attire is a central problem with flying

It remains the case that a good way to learn how people feel about things is to ask them. So you don’t have to simply assume, say, that people are hankering to work up a sweat before hopping onto a six-hour flight or that they think the central failure of the airline industry can be summarized as “sweatpants.” You can just contact a bunch of people over the phone and online and ask them to tell you what it is that they are concerned about.

Which is what YouGov did. And what they found is probably not surprising: The things that people find most annoying about flying are prices, delays and discomfort.

In fact, more than 6 in 10 Americans pointed to ticket prices as a major problem with flying. Half said the same of cramped seats, delays, hidden fees, and staffing shortages (which, of course, lead to delays). And waaaaaaaaaaay at the bottom of the list came “passengers dressing too casually,” which only 8 percent of respondents described as a major problem.

I’ve highlighted it above because it’s useful to contrast that issue (such as it is) with other highlighted ones, like delays and fees. Delays and hidden fees are very much issues over which the administration and the Transportation Department have some influence — yet Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has instead repeatedly cajoled people into spiffing up before jumping in their C-group Southwest seat to Bozeman.

On most of these issues, by the way, there isn’t much difference between Democrats and Republicans. When looking only at those with an opinion, we see that the biggest gap in opinion between Democrats and Republicans is on the availability of ground transportation at airports, which is perhaps related to the fact that residents of big cities (where traffic is often more of a problem) are more likely to be Democrats.

The next two biggest partisan gaps are on a lack of aircraft safety — where Democrats, critical of Duffy, see a bigger problem — and on this issue of attire, where Republicans are more likely to offer complaint. (Just after that comes a probably correlated partisan divide, with Democrats being more likely to complain that dress codes are already too strict.)

The takeaway here, though, is that less than half of Republicans see attire as even a minor problem. More than half say that prices are a major problem, including a majority who identify hidden fees as a major problem with flying.

I’m afraid I have some bad news for them on each of those fronts.

Photo: What flying looked like in the 1950s — at least in a British Overseas Airways ad.