61–70 of 178 posts
I've been saying for years that the only thing holding back massive disruption in the airline industry is the FAA. American and United are two of the most poorly run mega-corps in the US. Customers hate them, but need to fly. Warren Buffet thinks they're notoriously bad investments. Why?
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…
Yes, passengers don't know their rights but pilots and other administrators should. So United personal should have known they are in a legal grey area when removing a passenger who had boarded. I found the argument interesting that United should have lied and just invented a plane swap with a smaller body. Would have left the affected passengers is a weak position. There is so much wrong on all levels including the r…
From what I've read, they weren't in a grey area, they were doing something that was specifically illegal. A grey area is when it may or may not be illegal. This wasn't grey.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The airline played the game, ran too lean and paid the price. I would argue that the unconscious paying customer with a bloody head paid the price.
Well, United stock went down, IIRC, $830 million dollars. That's paying a bit of a price. They may pay for it in lost sales and lawsuits, as well. The cop got suspended. That's paying a price, too. And it may not be the end of the price he pays.
I've been saying for years that the only thing holding back massive disruption in the airline industry is the FAA. American and United are two of the most poorly run mega-corps in the US. Customers hate them, but need to fly. Warren Buffet thinks they're notoriously bad investments. Why?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case, semantics matter. Overbooking is a legally protected practice, but what you're trying to wedge into the definition of 'overbooking' is not.
If terms and definitions matter, the legal term you are looking for is actually "oversales", not overbooking which is a colloquial term
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Because handbook says a certain amount is the maximum they can offer, and likely the crew offering more would risk their job. Following this fiasco, Munoz said they will expand the handbook. We'll see.
Also, I think there's actually a government regulation which caps it at $1300 or so.
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…
The subtext here is that customers don't have any actual rights when dealing with a large corporation. The problem is that people now believe that. In fact, lawsuits against big companies often are settled on very favorable terms for the customer. As the article points out, United violated their own contract of carriage and FAA regulations. This is going to cost them.
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Why would what happened to United being more competitive practices? I don't see the connection.
The airlines can set up any rules they wish (with the FAA being complicit), because they know consumers (passengers) don't have much choice - they need to fly, driving is usually not an option in the US.
If you mean by distance, sure, but you can drive anywhere in the US, and there are a lot of people that do choose to drive semi-long distances (10-12 hours) over flying when fuel is cheap because they enjoy driving. It's less of an option when the distance is something like 30-40 hours, i.e. from LA to NYC.
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>The airline played the game, ran too lean and paid the price. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, they just didn't follow through with the correct way to free up seats, which is increasing the bid. Some family cleared something like $13,000 in amex gift cards during the delta debacle last week by volunteering their seats multiple times. If you keep increasing the bid, you will find a price at which someone w…
Compared to the 1.6 billion that came off the stock price, anything looks cheap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because handbook says a certain amount is the maximum they can offer, and likely the crew offering more would risk their job. Following this fiasco, Munoz said they will expand the handbook. We'll see.
Also, I think there's actually a government regulation which caps it at $1300 or so.