Laurence M. Vance: Price discrimination is fair and just

  While on a recent cross-country flight, I looked around at the 200 or so other passengers on the plane and thought, not about the snacks we would be served (pretzels), the movie we would be shown (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), or whether the babies on the flight would cry the whole way (they did), but about economics and economic justice.

  I wondered about the truth of the oft-repeated claim that no one on an airline flight pays the same amount for his ticket as anyone else and the question that is sometimes raised whether that practice is fair.

  Airlines engage in a form of what is known as price discrimination. It is typically defined as selling the same product to different people for different prices on the basis of their willingness to pay and not for reasons associated with product costs.