Again it’s an interesting total lack of belief in markets. The amount the airline can charge you for the ticket to begin with is also ‘uncapped’. But if they charge more than competitors, adjusting for real and perceived differences in the service, they don’t sell tickets. Likewise if you simply keep raising the bid from $800 to what it takes to get four people to deplane actually voluntarily, there’s no more practical reason to believe that will be some truly outrageous sum than to believe those people would pay truly outrageous sums for the tickets in the first place.
This is really the most fundamental weakness in the pro-UA argument. The posts trying to explain why just offering more to avoid this situation wouldn’t work are consistently silly. The ones arguing the legal merits in favor of UA are plausible, though again a plausible amateur legal opinion UA is on solid legal ground in this particular case is not worth a whole lot IMO.
In general, I view the policy of offering increasing amounts of compensation to customers to induce them to volunteer to give up their seat as more or less the equivalent of settling a lawsuit. Sure, one could win by simply asserting the facts, but why not save the hassle of an argument. That doesn’t mean that a party to the dispute is obligated to continue to try to settle after reasonable offers have been made.
I don’t care at all if you think amateur opinions on the contract are worth your time listening to; I find amateur opinions on ethics to be equally tedious.
Yes, that it is the merchant’s right to summon authorities to expel a customer who refuses to leave (and that under the law and regs and contract you do NOT have a right to refuse an order to leave, but may proceed to raise holy hell at the counter; or that by now who the hell does not know that physically resisting police regardless of who’s right or wrong inthe argument does not bring good times to the citizen), should be a separate issue from the matter of use of excessive force or not enough care by the police personnel. With the cramped quarters and crowding of other passengers there was the heightened risk of injury not only to the subject and agents but to bystanders and their property.
As it turns out Airport Police are investigating improper procedure. For one thing, there’s the issue with the injured man re-entering the plane; one would think a person forcibly removed in that manner would be kept detained rather than allowed to walk about (we already know some LEAs will just let you sit there bleeding).
Overall, U.S. airlines involuntarily bump about 1 out of every 18,000 passengers. Hawaiian Airlines has a very low rate of 1 out of 142,000 passengers, and Delta isn’t too far behind. United and American are generally in the neighborhood of 1 out of every 20,000 plus passengers, or just slightly better than the overall average. The bastards at Spirit are more or less in the ballpark of the national average, though slightly worse.
What’s very surprising to me is that the airlines on the high end of bumping passengers involuntarily are generally viewed as the airlines that I think people are most loyal to, and are probably regarded as the most customer-friendly airlines: Southwest and JetBlue. Southwest bumps about 1 in 12,000 passengers, and during this reporting period, JetBlue bumps 1 out of 8,000 passengers – very nearly three times the rate of United and American.
Since JetBlue does not oversell any of its flights, it’s very surprising to me that the airlines that DO oversell flights generally perform better than them. I don’t know why this occurs.
ETA: I wasn’t aware of Delta’s reverse auction for being voluntarily bumped – but I agree it is a fantastic approach.
God, there’s so much armchair quarterbacking by people who think they have a handle of the facts, policies, procedures, etc.
And so what if he was a fucking doctor? What if the next person was in construction and had to be on-site the next morning to complete a job on schedule? What if the person after that was going to see a dying relative? People act like just because he’s a doctor, he should be elevated on some ivory pillar.
Everyone had a reason to go to Louisville (surprisingly enough), and it doesn’t make any one person’s reason any more valid than another’s.
The terms and conditions are on the ticket. The staff had to get to Louisville to avoid inconveniencing plane-fulls of people, all who had reason to go where they were headed. There might’ve been gasp TWO doctors on the planes that wouldn’t have been able to take off because the doctor decided to throw a tantrum.
And let’s say that they would’ve just relented and not made him get off the plane? What’s to keep the next person from doing the same? And the person after that?
That IS rather clever! I can think of a few times where I would have made a bid if it had been offered that way.
(Oh, and just to be clear: that something is the company’s legal right does not make it necessarily a wise or good thing to do. Just that it is and they can.)
What’s being ignored here is how horrible an experience flying has become. The early check in times, security checks, all the hassles. Then you get on your plane, settle into your seat, and then they throw you off? To give the seats to the airlines own staff?
And how do we know that it was a lawful order from a cop? If United was not abiding by the actual rules in place (which still hasn’t been decided), what right did it have to remove the passenger? And if it had no right to remove the passenger, what right did the cop have to order the passenger to leave?
Facts, policies, and procedures won’t matter a whit once this is all settled. The doctor will get a pay day, and airlines will change those policies and procedures to greatly lessen the risk of a similar event happening in the future. One obvious way is to be way, way more upfront about overbooking and deplaning (back-of-ticket small print won’t be considered sufficient).
The fact that people keep throwing around ‘uncapped’ like United offered a significant amount of money is also senseless. United offered compensation for losing a day at less than 1% of the hourly rate they’re willing to pay a person to work for them. I don’t find “well, maybe you have to pay someone 10% of a reasonable hourly rate” to be an unreasonable burden - but then again, most of the people arguing in favor of United seem to be against basic capitalism and market principles.
I see a potential moneymaker for airlines. When making reservations, can we expect to see an additional $50 option, after asked if we’d like to check a bag, or a skosh extra legroom.
How much would how many passengers pay to insure that they will NOT be in the pool for involuntary “reaccomodation”?
Yes, that’s what I was getting at before. The doctor didn’t pose a threat to passengers or crew and from that perspective, I think the way it was handled is going to be a nightmare for United. Yes, he should have followed the order. Yes, if necessary United should have upped the ante but he didn’t and they didn’t. There has to have been some better solutions than dragging the guy down the aisle for not giving up his seat because the airline needed to get employees on board.
Hey-both the movie and the musical “The Producers” spent 2+ hours or so mocking the idea of selling more than 100% of anything.
So if I can’t legally sell more than 100% of the shares of a play, and if I can’t sell more than 100% of the shares of company, why/how can airlines sell more than 100% of seats?
Once again, the airline did NOT call in the cops to beat anyone-what they did was legally(and in my opinion) ethically justified-what the cop did(if confirmed) was wrong. The airline did not hire or instruct that particular person, and they did not choose that particular person to enforce/overenforce their stated rules.
(No sarcasm intended).
“Mistakes were made.” Indeed!