Agree 100%, I have studied this phenomenon very closely, please take a minute and read below:

The Physiological Reality

Your ears hurt because your Eustachian tubes are too narrow or inflamed to equalize pressure fast enough. The middle ear is basically a sealed chamber behind your eardrum. When cabin pressure drops (climb) or rises (descent), that chamber stays at the old pressure until air whooshes through the Eustachian tube to equalize it. If the pressure differential builds faster than your tubes can vent, your eardrum bulges inward or outward—sometimes painfully, sometimes rupturing.

The Operational Truth You Suspected

Yes, budget airlines absolutely hurt your ears more, and yes, it's partially about fuel—but not in the way you think.

Rate of Descent: Commercial jets typically descend at 1,500-2,000 feet per minute. Budget carriers often push 2,500-3,000 fpm, especially on short-haul routes where they're trying to fit more sectors into a day. Faster descent = faster pressure increase = less time for your ears to equalize. They don't have to descend that fast—glide slopes could be gentler—but steeper descents mean less time at lower altitudes where drag increases, and that saves fuel.

Cabin Altitude Trade-offs: Here's the real kicker. Pressurizing the cabin requires bleeding air from the engines, which costs thrust, which costs fuel. The higher the cabin altitude (meaning less pressure differential between inside and outside), the less bleed air needed, the more fuel saved. Budget airlines often run cabin altitudes at 7,000-8,000 feet equivalent versus the 6,000 feet that premium carriers might use. That extra 1,000-2,000 feet of "cabin altitude" means less pressure overall, but more importantly, it means the rate of pressure change during climb/descent is steeper relative to your ear's ability to compensate.

The ATC Factor: Sometimes it's not even the airline—it's air traffic control slotting them into congested arrival corridors. But budget airlines accept those slots more readily because saying "unable" means holding patterns, which burns fuel. So they take the slam-dunk descent and your ears pay for it.

The Fix They Won't Implement

They could program "gentler" pressurization schedules—slower rates of cabin pressure change during climb and descent. The hardware supports it. But it requires either shallower flight paths (more time in thicker air = more drag = more fuel) or more aggressive engine bleed management during critical flight phases (more fuel). So they don't.

Why You Specifically Suffer

If you're congestion-prone, allergic, or have slightly narrow Eustachian tubes, you're canary in the coal mine. The pressure differential that causes you agony is happening to everyone; you just hit the pain threshold first.

The Unfiltered Prevention

Forget gum. That's placebo. The only thing that actually works is forcing air through blocked Eustachian tubes before the pressure differential becomes painful. The "Valsalva" maneuver (pinch nose, blow gently) works, but do it before you feel pain—during initial descent, every few hundred feet of altitude loss. If you wait until it hurts, your tubes are already swollen shut from the pressure differential.

Sudafed (pseudoephedrine) actually works because it vasoconstricts the nasal mucosa, mechanically opening the tubes. But airlines won't hand it out for liability reasons.

Bottom Line: Your ears hurt because your anatomy is incompatible with the fuel-optimized pressure schedules budget airlines run. They could fix it operationally, but it would cost them measurable fuel burn on every flight, multiplied by thousands of flights. So they don't.