United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler • Hacker News Board

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#261

Post by jsemrau » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:05 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #10

jsemrau wrote: post #7

Time for regulating the oligopoly of the airline industry. Obviously the safety of passengers can not be ensured anymore. https://medium.com/@thisTenqyuLife/united-airlines-should-go...

>Obviously the safety of passengers can not be ensured anymore. Let's not be dramatic. Actual airline safety issues that lead to horrific deaths are not being discussed here. This is just piss poor customer service that could be encountered on any property (e.g. hotels that have overbooked, etc).

It's not only the safety part. With hotel rooms in many cases you have a choice to just go to the hotel next door. If there is only one daily flight tough luck. You'd better find a hotel room.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#262

Post by jsemrau » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:07 PM UTC

jpttsn wrote: post #30

rectang wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking up oligopolies via "antitrust"?

You want... more, smaller airlines?

The oligopoly of the big 4 is creating the problems. On some routes there is only one carries operating stifling competition.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#263

Post by tarlinian » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:08 PM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #190

zippergz wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a paid United Club membership. Those lounges are already pretty full a lot of the time, and one of the biggest reasons I (and many of the other members I know) pay for it is exactly the situation you describe. When something goes wrong with a flight, it's well worth the cost of the membership to have helpful agents, minimal lines, and a nice place to relax. It's not about the free mediocre food. Having a place…

And a spot to recharge your electronics along with free wifi! Don't forget those parts.

What kind of airports are you people flying out of where the entire airport doesn't have free wi-fi and outlets (this is actually one thing about most airports that has gotten significantly better in the last 10 years), but is still large enough to warrant a United club...I feel like I've been seeing more and more of these exaggerations since the incident...flying on any American airline is kind of crappy, but complain about the right (real) problems. Otherwise, there's not chance of anything improving.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#264

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:09 PM UTC

user15672 wrote: post #114

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW this attitude is the one taught by primary school teachers in the UK "do what the teacher tells you straight away without question" and it's evil. I can see how such an attitude gets then reinforced and survives in adults, "that's what 'good' pupils do".

This is taught so that small kids don't carry on doing things that might be dangerous (kids don't know the difference between dangerous and annoying, so a blanket rule is more sensible here). It's not evil, it's damn sensible. Please feel free to critisise the continuation of this teaching to older kids who can think critically about what they're doing, but don't ask for primary school kids to not do what the account…

No, demanding doing things without question is truly an insidious evil. Even a 5 year old has faculty enough to question some blanket commands.

T: "everyone sit down now, please"

P: "my chair has wet paint on it Sir, do I have to sit down too?"

Should the teacher say "always do as I say first time" next or should they acknowledge they were operating on imperfect knowledge of the situation and modify the command? This is only slightly contrived, some pupils will sit in the paint through fear of the teacher (some, occasionally, through over-bearing desire to please the teacher).

Always allowing a command to be questioned develops critical thinking and encourages creativity whilst demanding pupils use good communications. It's harder to handle with a group, for sure, but worth it IMO.

Questioning a command in order to get a reason for complying does not equate to "not doing what an accountable adult says". "Because I say so" should be the last fallback, not the first and only reason available.

It requires humility. Being corrected by a 7yo, say, in front of a group can feel humiliating; but it's more important to do what is right than it is to instill a misplaced sense of obedience as being the highest virtue.

This allows for the fallibility of the accountable adult and respects - and develops - the faculty of the child(ren).

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#265

Post by mintplant » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:12 PM UTC

> Fearns requested a full refund for his flight from Kauai and asked for United to make a $25,000 donation to the charity of his choice. This is how rich guys do it.

It bugs me that so much of the emphasis in this article is on the idea that they dared to do this to someone wealthy.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#266

Post by mitchdoogle » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:12 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #63

tici_88 wrote: post #17

Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. Not just the United incident(s) but also TSA, Trump travel restrictions, flights constantly overbooked, massively late etc. I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. I think anyone who doesn't really need to be in the US and/or is planning travelling with kids is likely to have some second thoughts at t…

Anecdotally I've noticed that for like 5 years now my friends and family have a pretty severe aversion to flying anywhere for anything. From needing to show up hours before the flight, to the invasive screenings, the insane restrictions on what you can and cannot bring, the sentiment that if you check any baggage it's basically as good as gone, the ever increasing cost, the delays, and even things like the worry abou…

I really don't understand this. I've flown 3-4 times a year for the past 10 years and love flying.

At busy airports like JFK and NRT, I show up no more than 90 minutes before boarding time, which gives me time to check my bags and go through security, and still have time to grab a snack. At smaller airports, like MCI, I show up 30 minutes before boarding time and still have time to relax a bit.

I prefer to check bags. It's free on domestic flights for me and a passenger because I have airline-branded credit card, I avoid the pain of trying to find a space for my carry-on, and it just feels nicer to be able to walk through security and to my gate without dragging around a huge suitcase. I've never once had trouble with checked baggage - no valuables stolen, nothing lost.

And what's this about the "ever-increasing cost"?! Flights are cheaper than ever. If you're lucky enough to live near a hub, you can get anywhere in the world for a decent price. At smaller airports, the hubs are just one flight away and might not even cost any more. If they do it's only $100 or so.

A 3 hour flight is more like a 20 hour drive. Take Chicago to Miami for example. I just looked some flights. A nonstop flight is 3 hr 5 min and cost about $200 round trip. You'd spend more than that on gas for just the one way trip if you drove. Not to mention a hotel since you'd probably want to break it up to 2 days driving.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#267

Post by Quinner » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:13 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #234

ptero wrote: post #78

At the moment I wish United gets beaten up well for forced passenger removal earlier this week. However, IMO this article just tries to pile onto the "United stinks" meme and is poorly written (more emotions than facts). Some things missing (for me): 1. When did this happen? The article makes it look like this just happened, but does not mention a date. I suspect the omission is on purpose (if so, boo!; if not, sorry…

"IMO the main point is valid -- the person was first to the seat and in general whoever gets into the seat first keeps it in case of a seat collision or a duplicate ticket." I would be extremely annoyed if I were in the same situation as this flyer. However, I'm not really sure what United is supposed to do here ... according to the article they had a mechanical problem with the original plane and the replacement pla…

Oh come on, it's not a race to the seats. This should've been handled at the gate before boarding. United knew it didn't have enough seats, when the plane changed, they should have made seating adjustments then.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#268

Post by cryodesign » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

tech4all wrote: post #111

I don't develop games... But if I did I would create a game called "United flight agent". You would be standing in the aisle facing the rear of the plane. Each round you would have a goal number of passengers to forcibly remove. You would walk up and down the aisle and punch out selected passengers. Once you had suitably subdued a passenger you click a security badge and the "Airport Rental Security" guys come and dr…

These guys are already on it:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vr-game-voluntary-disemba...

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#269

Post by tarlinian » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:14 PM UTC

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #212

mpweiher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...not a pattern of behavior. It's actually far worse than just a "pattern of behavior", it is how United and other airlines (mostly US, but rest of the world is catching on) have deliberately structured their enterprise and the entire customer experience. Everything revolves around "privilege". Even 20 years ago, this used to be bad. On most European airlines' flights, you just waited at the gate until your flight…

>> Whenever I had the misfortune of flying United (an ever rarer occasion as I wizened up to the situation and later to "codeshare" flights), half the gate was at the counter, jockeying for perks and arguing status and privilege. I don't fly United all that much so when I do - I'm in "Zone 4" for boarding which means I get to observe them do pre-boarding/global services/active military/premium and then zones 1-3 - I'…

I actually agree with this...I took a flight through Amsterdam recently and was sort of shocked to see an entire planeload of passengers for a 787 line up in one line that ended up blocking half the walkway in the terminal. There's no point to this and just makes everyone's life more miserable for having to stand in a line for 20 minutes. At least with the zone boarding system you know you aren't getting on until your zone is called so there's no point to lining up 20 minutes ahead of time just to watch other people go in ahead of you.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#270

Post by rdiddly » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:15 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #63

tici_88 wrote: post #17

Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. Not just the United incident(s) but also TSA, Trump travel restrictions, flights constantly overbooked, massively late etc. I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. I think anyone who doesn't really need to be in the US and/or is planning travelling with kids is likely to have some second thoughts at t…

Anecdotally I've noticed that for like 5 years now my friends and family have a pretty severe aversion to flying anywhere for anything. From needing to show up hours before the flight, to the invasive screenings, the insane restrictions on what you can and cannot bring, the sentiment that if you check any baggage it's basically as good as gone, the ever increasing cost, the delays, and even things like the worry abou…

And you get at least a fighting chance at experiencing/appreciating the places you pass through. And in a pinch you've got a place to sleep. And no inane announcements to sit through and no inane in-flight movie to avert your eyes from!