The United Airlines incident.

[Noodle]

Delta is first out of the gate, dramatically increasing the amount of money employees are authorized to offer for voluntary bumps, up to $2K for gate agents and almost $10K for supervisors, both well beyond what is required by the FAA for involuntary bumps.

http://time.com/money/4741108/delta-united-overbooked-flight-compensation-vouchers/

I think that's all just PR by Delta. How often do you think that Delta will ever get anywhere near $10K for voluntary bumping? I say it will never happen.

Imagine you're waiting for your flight and Delta starts by offering $400 (plus hotel and meals) for the first two people willing to be bumped to the next day. You can wait another day and want some money. But, it would be foolish for you to hold out for the full $10K, as someone will say yes for less. And an overbooked flight will always have people willing to be bumped for a lot less than $10K.

Look at it this way. When was the last time you were flying somewhere for something other than business and would not have taken $2000 to delay your flight for a day?

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

I think that's all just PR by Delta. How often do you think that Delta will ever get anywhere near $10K for voluntary bumping? I say it will never happen.

Imagine you're waiting for your flight and Delta starts by offering $400 (plus hotel and meals) for the first two people willing to be bumped to the next day. You can wait another day and want some money. But, it would be foolish for you to hold out for the full $10K, as someone will say yes for less. And an overbooked flight will always have people willing to be bumped for a lot less than $10K.

Look at it this way. When was the last time you were flying somewhere for something other than business and would not have taken $2000 to delay your flight for a day?

Oh, you're 100% right, but I didn't take that as the key point. The key point is that Delta is authorizing their employees to offer a lot more when necessary, to avoid the very rare situation when the previous limits might not be enough. In other words, to avoid a United situation.

 

[hgdownunder]

Not carrying the crew members likely would've resulted in an at least one, if not several, flight cancellations the next day. Requiring them to drive might've been in conflict with certain crew member's labor agreement with the carrier.

Taxi/Uber

 

[Hank Reardon]

Taxi/Uber

They couldn't. They were bound by union contracts. There were things botched by UA on the process/PR side, but transporting the flight crew wasn't one of them. They were compelled by regulations to do it.

 

[hgdownunder]

I don't think there is rhyme or reason why somethings get picked up on social media and not others... When is the last time a police shooting of a black man blew up on social media? I would venture to guess they have occurred, but due to various other geopolitical/trump news they didn't make the nightly news/trend to the same extent. There have probably been 10,000 other egregious plane issues in the past year that didn't start trending... guess it depends on who films, how big a following they have, who shares it, etc.

Speaking specifically to airline issues... I had an absolutely egregious, and insane denied boarding in 2012. I was flying from Miami to Bishkek on a $1350 ticket roundtrip. Everything was fine and dandy until I went to board the plane at which point I wasn't allowed to board due to having a return ticket past the VISA free period. Now the crux of the matter is that their(Delta) system(TIMATIC) only showed VISA free, whereas the policy of the country also allowed visas on arrival up to 90 days... So I argued for a couple mins and showed the f-ing web page of both the embassy and ministry of foreign affairs which the dildo head didn't give a shit about. Finally with 2 mins before the plane takes off he tells me I have to buy a ticket to a 3rd country, which was impossible with that amount of time and circumstances. I ended up out $1400+ when I had to buy a ticket on Aeroflot later that day. (Absolutely no issues with the visa crap) Was stuck in Miami airport for 18 hours starting from 5:00am. Had another 12hour layover in Moscow. Ending up being over 40 hours of travel time. In exchange I was offered a $30 gift certificate... everyone was yelling at me the entire time as if I'm the one who ****ed up. I wanted to file a small claims suit up the maximum $5,000, but never got around to it. Was absolutely unbelievable.

That buying ticket to a 3rd destination is an old trick. I think they pull that out to improve cash-flow. I encountered that when flying into Hong Kong in 1983.

 

[IUXC68]

Taxi/Uber

To go from Chicago to Louisville?

 

[hgdownunder]

To go from Chicago to Louisville?

Yes. What's the problem?

 

[IUXC68]

Yes. What's the problem?

First of all, it's a long trip. Second, UAL flight crew members are covered by labor agreements which prescribe what they are entitled to, and I doubt that taxi/Uber is prescribed for anything but local transportation to a crew overnight hotel. Third, if the crew was going to Louisville for a duty assignment, whether that day or the next day, the amount of time spent in getting there is counted as either "deadhead" time or duty time, which may limit their availability for the following duty period. Frankly, the media hasn't done a good job of describing the details because they are more interested in the "if it bleeds it leads" mentality and not the less glamorous aspects of this unfortunate incident, so it's difficult to do much but speculate on matters like crew transportation.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

The catch is, people get bribed off the flight. That is fine. But what happens if people don't accept the bribe. Which is what we just saw here. Let's suppose you were flying in for a kid's wedding, a funeral, a critical business meeting with your most important client, to have an organ transplant and your name is chosen "at random". There are times being required to leave is OK, other times it is a minor inconvenience. But sometimes it is a major problem in your life. There is the problem.

They say prices will go up, by what? A nickel, a dime, $10, $500,000?

I've never missed a flight, so I don't know what they do. I always assumed a nonrefundable ticket was exactly that. But maybe that just means I pay? I don't know. I think I posted earlier in the thread how much United makes in change fees every year, and it is a staggering amount. Of all the major carriers, Southwest makes the least in change fees. Guess what airline I try to fly?

I've done tons of flying and seen lots of the bribing to have people get off flights. I've never seen a time when someone didn't take the bribe and someone had to be forced off as a result. It may need a tweak or two, but the system already works pretty well. I'd like to be able to take the bribe one day.

 

[baileyiu]

First of all, it's a long trip. Second, UAL flight crew members are covered by labor agreements which prescribe what they are entitled to, and I doubt that taxi/Uber is prescribed for anything but local transportation to a crew overnight hotel. Third, if the crew was going to Louisville for a duty assignment, whether that day or the next day, the amount of time spent in getting there is counted as either "deadhead" time or duty time, which may limit their availability for the following duty period. Frankly, the media hasn't done a good job of describing the details because they are more interested in the "if it bleeds it leads" mentality and not the less glamorous aspects of this unfortunate incident, so it's difficult to do much but speculate on matters like crew transportation.

It's not a long trip - if you are just a passenger. In regards to union labor agreements - i get that, but it is also a contract with the airline that the passenger has on a no refund flight.

 

[IUXC68]

It's not a long trip - if you are just a passenger. In regards to union labor agreements - i get that, but it is also a contract with the airline that the passenger has on a no refund flight.

By car, it is at least 5 hours. That's a long trip. Think of it in terms of when you last sat on an aircraft for that long.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

that's only true in a non competitive market, where any increased costs come out of the customer's pockets, rather than the net profits.

we constantly get bombarded with this total BS that everything corps do that we hate, is actually in our best interests.

corps don't do anything with consumers' best interests in mind, only theirs, their management's, and the shareholders'.

remember, a corp is an inanimate thing, has no feelings, and does only what it's programmed to do, which is max shareholder and management gains.

in fact, the best interests of the consumer and the shareholder are often 180 degree polar opposites.

the reason bump rules are as they are, isn't because that's what works best for the flyer.

it's because the the airlines all gave huge barrels of money to legislators and regulators as brides to get said legislators and regulators to allow them to do things they never would be allowed to do, absent the barrels of money bribes. (including allowing mergers that eliminate real competition).

the "overbooking" issue was solved almost as soon as commercial flight was instituted.

once the flight was sold out, subsequent purchases were sold as "stand by" status, and were handled in a last come/first out basis.

only reason that isn't the policy today, is that airlines want a $400 tic bought at the last minute, (possibly after the flight was already sold out), to have priority over a $300 tic bought 2 weeks earlier.

the airlines didn't get legislators and regulators to ok this and other consumer unfriendly policies by convincing said regulators and legislators that these policies are actually in the best interests of the consumer.

they did so by merely buying off said regulators and legislators with money, which is much cheaper than buying off the consumer with service and price, because there are very very few regulators and legislators, and many many consumers, so they they get much more bang for their buck that way.

What?