41–50 of 178 posts
I believe other airlines implement this in some capacity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems, like usual for American police, officers are insensitive to anything but violence; no logic, just apply force My understanding is that there was a lengthy conversation that took place before the outrage-inducing video starts. They did attempt to resolve the situation peacefully. At some point there is an impasse. Police are making a request and he's ignoring it. There are two ways that can go: 1) Police shr…
The article suggests that the airline was the one breaking the law and not the passenger. So in this case the police helped the airline commit a crime. Is this nowadays what means to have a police force?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2) He's going to be forcefully removed. Yet why does the forceful removal of that passenger justify knocking him down and dragging him off the plane? There's plenty of ways to forcefully remove someone from something without doing what they did. Police is allowed to apply force, but that doesn't immediately give them the right to go loco.
This, like the notion that police should aim for the knees when shooting at suspects, is one of those perennial concerns that doesn't survive contact with reality. Once force is applied, you shouldn't be surprised when things go wrong. Force is messy. Which is why, yes, it should be viewed as a last resort. Maybe there are better ways to resolve this situation wrt to the police and the airline. But I think basic comm…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems, like usual for American police, officers are insensitive to anything but violence; no logic, just apply force My understanding is that there was a lengthy conversation that took place before the outrage-inducing video starts. They did attempt to resolve the situation peacefully. At some point there is an impasse. Police are making a request and he's ignoring it. There are two ways that can go: 1) Police shr…
The article suggests that the airline was the one breaking the law and not the passenger. So in this case the police helped the airline commit a crime. Is this nowadays what means to have a police force?
On overbooking, this is a solved problem: hold an auction where the max payoff is the risk in dollars X, distributed amongst Y passengers (the number of seats you need to free up). Start at some low anchor point ("$300 to get off the plane") and increment up until you have takers. If the total value exceeds X, write it off - you messed up. I believe other airlines implement this in some capacity.
No, the real failure (and the source of this and many other issues in the airline industry) is the lack of competition in the US domestic market. Pure and simple. The huge, 350-million US domestic market is served by 4-5 major airlines, while the EU with 500 million people is served by tens of airlines. I recently flew from Barcelona to Nice for 30 euros, round-trip (with seat assignment). Where are the (potentially…
> the lousy economics of airlines combined with their oligopoly status in the US says they will be extremely reluctant to make anything beyond bare minimum changes
It sounds like you agree with the author.
On overbooking, this is a solved problem: hold an auction where the max payoff is the risk in dollars X, distributed amongst Y passengers (the number of seats you need to free up). Start at some low anchor point ("$300 to get off the plane") and increment up until you have takers. If the total value exceeds X, write it off - you messed up. I believe other airlines implement this in some capacity.
No, the real failure (and the source of this and many other issues in the airline industry) is the lack of competition in the US domestic market. Pure and simple. The huge, 350-million US domestic market is served by 4-5 major airlines, while the EU with 500 million people is served by tens of airlines. I recently flew from Barcelona to Nice for 30 euros, round-trip (with seat assignment). Where are the (potentially…
Why would what happened to United being more competitive practices? I don't see the connection.
The subtext here is that customers don't have any actual rights when dealing with a large corporation. The terms of service have become so lengthy and obscure that it's virtually certain for a corporate lawyer to find some justification somewhere for almost anything. The corporate employees and the police both operate on this assumption. As a customer, your only recourse is to meekly accept whatever treatment is comi…
Even if it wasn't a passenger overbooking, it was overbooking in that they failed to properly account for the likelihood of having to ship crews around their network. If their occupancy ratio was lower, then there wouldn't have been a problem, they could have fit the crew in. If they reserved 4 seats for crew on every flight, again there wouldn't have been a problem. If they had even reserved 2 seats and run sufficie…
If they had recognized that they needed 4 seats for crew before the passengers scanned their tickets and walked down the jetway as is usually done they wouldn't have had a problem. They could have started the process before the flight booked, asking for volunteers before they got seated and attached to the idea of being on that flight. If they had no volunteers, they could probably have randomly selected passengers t…