Overbooking, Flightcrew over paying passengers, the United incident

[karaddin]

The thing that confuses me about the attitude towards overbooking is that it's not standard practice all around the world, but it also doesn't seem to net you cheaper flights as compensation when compared to other countries. Does air travel suffer from a reverse economy of scale or something? The cost difference certainly doesn't appear to be down to harsher regulations, at least not where the customers are concerned. It's just baffling to have more anti consumer behaviour and an equal or higher price.

[Iskaral Pust]

Over-booking helps the bottom line but airlines make much, much more money from selling air-miles to credit card companies and other business partners with rewards programs.  It will only take a couple of credit card companies to drop United from their rewards program because of the bad PR to cost United more money than over-booking has made for them in the past decade.  Call VISA or Capital One and tell them your feelings on this.

Delta's silent auction is a much smarter way to deal with over-booking because it finds willing volunteers at lower prices.  Once the airline is throwing out increasing offers and everyone can see that other passengers aren't accepting, you've created a spiral of stupidity for yourself where you've almost guaranteed that willing volunteers will hold out for a higher and higher price, and some will hold out beyond the max the airline has authorized.  They would have happily accepted less but you created an auction environment that made them hold back.

All airlines over-book.  The math has consistently proved them right: they can predict no-shows reasonably well and it's reasonably profitable for a tiny downside in passenger discontent because most bumped passengers volunteer for a nice benefit.  But clever United just found a way to take that tiny downside in passenger discontent, combine it with some gestapo police and turn it into an identity as the worst airline in the world.  I bet people would prefer to fly Malaysia Airlines right now.

Perhaps I'm too naive but I think the police officer should lose his job over this.  Absent a court order, I don't see why a police officer is using physical violence to enforce a petty contractual dispute that is causing no danger to anyone.  When the guy refused to leave his seat, the police officer should have shrugged and told United to sue the passenger afterward for damages for reneging on the small print on his ticket.

[Kalbear]

Oceanic air is where it's at

[The Anti-Targ]

Surely money solves these problems. Pay people enough to miss a flight and they will do it willingly. It happened to me on a flight from LA to Rome. The flight was over booked, so the airline offered us $200 US each to reroute to get to Rome via Zurich, and we took it, no problem.

[Dr. Pepper]

5 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Surely money solves these problems. Pay people enough to miss a flight and they will do it willingly. It happened to me on a flight from LA to Rome. The flight was over booked, so the airline offered us $200 US each to reroute to get to Rome via Zurich, and we took it, no problem.

Sometimes but not always.  Back when I was single with no kids and no set schedule, I'd happily take money for being bumped.  Practically any amount of money, especially if it came with a free hotel room as well because I could never afford the hotels airlines would put me in.

These days no way.  Perhaps if there is another flight within an hour or two I may consider it, but definitely won't wait until the next day.  Nope, not happening, not volunteering, they'd have to drag me out.   I suspect a lot of people feel this way due to work (which probably pays them more), vacations (which are probably paid in full and rarely taken), kids (who are mega stressed in airports and during travel), and families and pets to get back to.  Delaying travel for something that isn't weather or terrorism is just a no go for millions.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Sometimes but not always.  Back when I was single with no kids and no set schedule, I'd happily take money for being bumped.  Practically any amount of money, especially if it came with a free hotel room as well because I could never afford the hotels airlines would put me in.

These days no way.  Perhaps if there is another flight within an hour or two I may consider it, but definitely won't wait until the next day.  Nope, not happening, not volunteering, they'd have to drag me out.   I suspect a lot of people feel this way due to work (which probably pays them more), vacations (which are probably paid in full and rarely taken), kids (who are mega stressed in airports and during travel), and families and pets to get back to.  Delaying travel for something that isn't weather or terrorism is just a no go for millions.

Everyone has a price. And an airline has a plane full of people who will have various prices. If an airline is down to asking frazzled parents toting a handful of kids then they are surely scraping the bottom of the barrel. Why did the airline approach us to get bumped? Because we were two adults unencumbered with children coming from New Zealand with New Zealand passports thus most likely on the way to somewhere not on the way back (i.e. pretty fresh). So clearly we were good targets to approach with a handful of cash as we were likely to agree.

The airline was Alitalia by the way.

[karaddin]

Iskaral - I accept all US airlines do it, but that simply doesn't happen here. Maybe Australia is some unique snowflake but I'm not familiar with it happening in Europe either. I'm open to being wrong on the latter, but I think this is very much a US thing. So my question remains if this is such an important part of the bottom line why aren't customers seeing those savings on their ticket prices?

[Dr. Pepper]

4 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Everyone has a price. And an airline has a plane full of people who will have various prices. If an airline is down to asking frazzled parents toting a handful of kids then they are surely scraping the bottom of the barrel. Why did the airline approach us to get bumped? Because we were two adults unencumbered with children coming from New Zealand with New Zealand passports thus most likely on the way to somewhere not on the way back (i.e. pretty fresh). So clearly we were good targets to approach with a handful of cash as we were likely to agree.

The airline was Alitalia by the way.

Perhaps if there were no cap on how much can be offered this might potentially be true.  As it stands, the cap is well below most people's price.  Hell, it's well below the cost of most people's tickets.  

[The Anti-Targ]

Just now, Dr. Pepper said:

Perhaps if there were no cap on how much can be offered this might potentially be true.  As it stands, the cap is well below most people's price.  Hell, it's well below the cost of most people's tickets.  

Of course it's below the cost of the ticket, they are still going to provide you the service, just delayed.

[Dr. Pepper]

Just now, The Anti-Targ said:

Of course it's below the cost of the ticket, they are still going to provide you the service, just delayed.

And delayed for many people is losing a hell of a lot more than $1350.  The idea that everyone has a price doesn't work when the cap on the price is fairly low to begin with.  

[The Anti-Targ]

13 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Iskaral - I accept all US airlines do it, but that simply doesn't happen here. Maybe Australia is some unique snowflake but I'm not familiar with it happening in Europe either. I'm open to being wrong on the latter, but I think this is very much a US thing. So my question remains if this is such an important part of the bottom line why aren't customers seeing those savings on their ticket prices?

Happened to me in New Zealand. But that was because a govt minister and his/her entourage got placed ahead of me. Pissed me off somewhat because I was travelling on official govt duties accompanying some US govt visitors. Fortunately I wasn't the only one on our side on the flight.

[ljkeane]

43 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Perhaps I'm too naive but I think the police officer should lose his job over this.  Absent a court order, I don't see why a police officer is using physical violence to enforce a petty contractual dispute that is causing no danger to anyone.  When the guy refused to leave his seat, the police officer should have shrugged and told United to sue the passenger afterward for damages for reneging on the small print on his ticket.

One of 'aviation security officers', which I assume is the official term for the airport police, has been placed on leave while the incident is being investigated apparently.

[Mudguard]

8 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Yes, when I've seen adults assaulted, I have heard many various noises leave their mouths and bodies.  I don't tend to belittle these responses by mocking them as two year olds.  Fear makes people make crazy noises.  Not to mention that fear response noises we make are also very cultural.  I'm sure the Chinese thank you kindly for saying they sound like bleating two year olds when they are scared.  

I'm with Manhole and White Walker.  His behavior, the loud screaming, under stress, anger, and/or fear or whatever else he was feeling isn't something I would ascribe to being Chinese.  That's just the behavior of that particular passenger.  I think it's bizarre that you are saying that this behavior is typical of Chinese people that are scared, that this behavior is typical of Chinese culture.

[mcbigski]

Almost no one is commenting on the fact that the plane was apparently delayed for more than an hour so that United could get their crew on board.  How often does that happen?  I mean, there was a full plane on the tarmac just sitting there waiting because United would rather inconvenience 100+ paying customers instead of finding alternative ways to get four employees a few hundred miles by the morning.  Christ, I know I feel l like cattle whenever I fly, but wow, that's arrogant.

[all swedes are racist]

i, for one, believe we should examine the sordid history of those involved in incidents like these

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

And delayed for many people is losing a hell of a lot more than $1350.  The idea that everyone has a price doesn't work when the cap on the price is fairly low to begin with.  

This is true, but they don't need to kick everyone off, just a small fraction which can usually be found. In my experience, the overbooking typically affects at most around 5% of the passengers on a given flight and one can usually find at least 1 person out of 20 who is willing to accept a delay for payment. It didn't work in this case because, as explained above by several people, they did multiple things in arguably the stupidest way possible.

[Dr. Pepper]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

I'm with Manhole and White Walker.  His behavior, the loud screaming, under stress, anger, and/or fear or whatever else he was feeling isn't something I would ascribe to being Chinese.  That's just the behavior of that particular passenger.  I think it's bizarre that you are saying that this behavior is typical of Chinese people that are scared, that this behavior is typical of Chinese culture.

This wasn't anything about the overall behavior, but specifically about what the victim sounded like when he was screaming under duress.  I think it's bizarre that several people are in agreement that it's ok to belittle a fear response by likening to both an animal and a toddler.  I also think it's bizarre that there are people who seem completely unaware that sounds differ by culture.  My voice and yes, even my screams would sound quite different if I were a Russian speaker, or a Mandarin speaker.  

29 minutes ago, r'hllor's reformed lobster said:

i, for one, believe we should examine the sordid history of those involved in incidents like these

Yup!

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

Almost no one is commenting on the fact that the plane was apparently delayed for more than an hour so that United could get their crew on board.  How often does that happen?  I mean, there was a full plane on the tarmac just sitting there waiting because United would rather inconvenience 100+ paying customers instead of finding alternative ways to get four employees a few hundred miles by the morning.  Christ, I know I feel l like cattle whenever I fly, but wow, that's arrogant.

According to alleged passengers, once he returned in a dazed state they had to empty the plane and clean his blood off before reboarding, so this ended up as a pretty significant delay for everyone. 

[Swordfish]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Of course it's below the cost of the ticket, they are still going to provide you the service, just delayed.

They offered this guy $800.

I doubt very much that he paid anywhere near that for his ticket.

[Larry of the Lawn]

The security goons should be charged with assault.