That would be the real question, and the answer is clearly a: quality and b: where they have cut corners that has not actually saved them money.

The difference in an airport is that much of the time you don’t have someplace to go right away – you’re literally trapped, sometimes for quite a long time, waiting for your connection.

Using your same analogy, I’d save more money and pay more for a better meal, not a better seat, because I pay for the meal in a restaurant.  Why the heck would one pay for a seat in a restaurant?  They don’t take you anywhere.  You pay for a meal.

Based your statements and your analogy, does this mean you’ve only gone to low frills eatery like Mcdonalds and never step into fine dinning?  Surely then, why would we throw money away into fine dining, when all you need is bland oatmeal that meets your daily nutritional requirements?

Airports need built-in facilities–I don’t think employees should bring extension cords so passengers and their kids can play with high-voltage wires. The airport-planners should design (or redesign) adequate power-points for passengers. The OP’s argument has some holes, as pointed out in previous comments.

For a look at what a modern airport CAN be, spend some time in Singapore’s Changi Airport. Certainly, airport administrators should.

I spend little time in US airports, but they remind me of prisons. Gray, uniformed individuals of questionable competence in positions of authority, and a lot of people who don’t want to spend time there.

I thought Southwest Airlines was actually doing quite well.

No one is having any fun. Most people who work at airports have precisely the same demeanor as people who work at a cemetery.

You’re thinking funeral attendants, not cemetery workers, Seth.  Cemetery workers are earthy folk, and often quite jolly!

Now Papa
looked like an old church deacon
but underneath he really was a clown
he said,
“folks are just dyin’ for our service;
god knows we’d be the last
to let them down!”

We wouldn’t pay a few hundred bucks for a slightly more comfortable seat in a restaurant, why would we do so in a plane? That’s just throwing money away that we could have spent enjoying ourselves at our destination, or on visiting more often.

Speak for yourself. A more comfortable seat can mean a day or two less spent flat on my back recovering from the trip.

(Yes, there is a very long, dangerous stretch of road through Canada. But there’s also a very long, dangerous stretch of road just to get to Canada. The combination is not trivial in time, safety, fuel consumption, or always passable during the winter months. Same for the AK Marine Highway.)

So they don’t even try to make your time at their facility comfortable. Why should they?

Of course, as this trend continues there are fewer and fewer customers regardless of price.  I haven’t flown in around a decade – I can rent a car and drive to Boston from DC in less time, with more comfort, less hassle, and lower cost than flying there.  Just the time saved dealing with “pre-boarding” and navigating the road mazes immediately around the airport gets me a hour or more.  I used to fly there fairly regularly; now I drive or webex, because I’ve chosen to boycott the physical and psychological discomforts of modern air travel.  They can’t make it cheap enough for me, until they get rid of the TSA foolishness and stop shrinking the size of the seats.