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

latimes.com

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

#371

Post by Freak_NL »

posguy wrote: post #185
Freak_NL wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that the rules have become a lot stricter recently, and it looks like American citizens might end up feeling the consequences as well. This week a Dutch journalist wrote about being rejected by the ESTA visa waiver application because of a previous visit to Iraq as a journalist. So to travel to the US he gets to pay almost $200 and formally apply for a visa — for accredited journalists this is unheard of. Si…

Hey now, inferring that some journalists deserve protection because they may have credentials with a company or govt is both silly, and very dangerous. It creates a situation where you literally strip protection away from most journalists and put them in harms way. Jake Appelbaum had a sendoff speech where he covered how his fellow journalists were putting him in grave danger when calling him an "Internet Activist" m…

> Hey now, inferring that some journalists deserve protection because they may have credentials with a company or govt is both silly, and very dangerous.

I'm not sure what you mean by your comment with respect to what I wrote — I'm not inferring anything. The ESTA visa waiver program allowed for some leeway in granting people who visited certain countries (e.g., Iran, Iraq) access in certain cases. This seems to have included politicians and journalists. I expect that the US government did limit this to accredited journalists.

Personally I agree with those critics who point out that the whole ESTA program is effectively a thinly disguised visa program. It is a shame that it exists in the first place.

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

#372

Post by madebysquares »

plandis wrote: post #363
irrational wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no social media accounts. I would love to know what their protocol says to do if someone claims to not have any social media accounts.

Yet here you are posting on a public message board under (I'm assuming) your account :)

Then we get to debate what is constitutes as a social media acct? Any forum, any public comment board? Or what is more traditionally called social media, Reddit/Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter and the like? Is email social media?

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

#373

Post by runamok »

anovikov wrote: post #307
e40 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will never do that, since it impacts profit.

Due to airlines' razor thin margins, this is simply impossible. That simple. Every single traditional airline will go bankrupt if it stopped overbooking. Unfortunately it is the greed and stupidity of us consumers that drove this market into the ground. We shouldn't blame airlines. Think about this next time when you pick 'order by price' in skyscanner...

From what I recall almost all tickets are non-refundable or they cost a lot more. So it seems like they are already covered...

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

#374

Post by Arizhel »

ferentchak wrote: post #201
gnode wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Actually, I wonder how much this will last considering that fossil energy will likely cost more and more and that more and more people from developing countries start to travel too. On the other hand, planes may become electric, and the cost of solar power is rapidly falling. If this trend continues, it will likely become cheaper to fly in the future. Even if planes don't become electric any time soon, other demand…

Is it possible to make something like a jet electric? If someone knows of one I want to see a picture. Sounds like something from one of my dad's old sci-fi novels.

Yes, it's possible to make anything electric that currently runs on fossil fuel.

Making electric motors to spin propellers isn't that hard. We already do this for ships: any modern cruise liner has electrically-powered propellers (screws) that propel the ship. The challenge on a plane is getting the power to the motors. You could do a serial hybrid system, where a diesel generator makes power for the motors; this is what they do on cruise ships, but while it works well there for various reasons (including the variable-speed nature of running a cruise ship, and the usefulness of "azipods" for maneuverability), it's not likely to work so well for planes since planes in flight run their engines near full-throttle all the time (so you end up using more fuel, not less, due to conversion losses). So the idea is running the planes on batteries, like electric cars do now. The problem there is the weight of the batteries needed to store that much power is prohibitive. If someone invents battery tech that can store significantly more energy with the same weight, then the equation will change and we could very well see electric airplanes.

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

#375

Post by mirimir »

deong wrote: post #219
shimon_e wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have multiple times deboarded a plane before take off. Due to change in business plans, flight delays, etc. In one case a passenger was sick on board and I asked to deboard as I didn't want to risk getting their cold. This was all on Asian airlines. My few experiences on United have been terrible. So in this case I'd say the regulations guiding airlines is fair. United's execution of these regulations is the proble…

So the computer picks 8 people, and you call out the first four on the list. One of them refuses, just like what happened here. Now what? Your solution just has the airline crew going, "Fair enough, sir, you can stay" and then calling the next name. At that point, the next person knows that refusing is allowed, so he does too. Pretty quickly, you're absolutely going to be on a flight where five of the eight refuse, a…

Yes. This is exactly it. United wants to buy back seats. So they just need to offer what sellers demand.

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

#376

Post by nradov »

rdl wrote: post #360
dmitrygr wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operating costs of a VLJ are still insanely huge. Example: a piston plane - SR22 can fly 200mph for 1200 miles on one tank of fuel. Approximate cost of that flight including amortised repair and maintenance costs: $1000. A VLJ, like SF50 can do that same flight at 320mph, but at an amortized cost of about $2600. Mostly it is due to engine overhaul costs. Overhauling a piston engine like in an SR22 is about $40k a…

I'm surprised turbine costs haven't fallen -- maybe we need more cruise missiles and jet-powered drones to raise the volume and lower per unit costs.

Cruise missile turbine engines have a design operating life of only a few hours, use special stabilized gel fuel, and optimize for performance over cost. I'm skeptical as to whether those will prove to be a good basis for developing cheaper VLJ engines.

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

#377

Post by mirimir »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #179
mirimir wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, also for safety reasons. "We have a VIP who needs your seat." is not a safety reason.

What if the VIP is a big fellow that threatened to start strangling people if he didn't get a seat?

OK, then he is the safety problem, and gets tazed.

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

#378

Post by mirimir »

mirimir wrote: post #77
rbcgerard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently united position is that you haven't "boarded" until the door has closed and plane has left the gate

It must be defined somewhere in law or regulation. Based on http://www.askthepilot.com/how-to-speak-airline/ it seems like "boarding" means to enter the plane.

So in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14108983 vilhelm_s posted this link: http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contrac...

> One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat.

> It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.

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

#379

Post by JustSomeNobody »

URSpider94 wrote: post #193
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the airline needs to leave a seat unsold to allow them to do this. I hope they get sued within a cent of their ability to continue operating.

So, let's just say for a moment that this applied to 100 flights per day, and meant that United foregoes $1,000 in revenue per seat that they don't sell. They would be giving up $100,000 per day, or $1 million every 10 days, or roughly $35 million per year, by leaving a first-class seat empty on every flight. Weighing that against the risk of pissing off one or two first-class passengers a month for those times when…

Surely they have metrics on how often a particular flight needs a seat for one of these "special people". On those flights, leave a seat. If nobody shows, then right at the end of boarding, allow another passenger to have that seat.

I wonder how many millions all this is going to end up costing United in the end.

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

#380

Post by kenshaw »

madebysquares wrote: post #372
plandis wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet here you are posting on a public message board under (I'm assuming) your account :)

Then we get to debate what is constitutes as a social media acct? Any forum, any public comment board? Or what is more traditionally called social media, Reddit/Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter and the like? Is email social media?

Don't move! Put your hands up!

It's an impossible to comply with demand, that gives the person evaluating entirety to claim compliance or non-compliance based on whim. Not a far cry from a poll test.

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