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How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

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Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#11

Post by tyingq »

acchow wrote: post #7
calbear81 wrote: post #2

If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less…

like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. We've decided we like price discrimination (why charge every ticketholder for a bag of pretzels when we can charge only those that want it instead?). But we don't like violence or aggression. I think the "new norm" of low-cast airfare we like is the price discrimination - not the violence.

A little more is coming out about how violent it was:

"The man who was dragged off a United Airlines flight suffered a broken nose and concussion and lost two front teeth"

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-live-stream-david-dao-...

And the United CEO seems to have finally clued into the right message:

"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off," Munoz told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday. "To remove a booked, paid, seated passenger -- we can't do that."

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#12

Post by wvenable »

kelnos wrote: post #3
calbear81 wrote: post #2

If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less…

This is the thing that always bothers me. By _far_, when (at least US domestic) travelers book flights, their main and often only consideration is ticket price. People claim to be annoyed by baggage fees, not being able to select their seat ahead of time, no or limited food, paid in-flight entertainment, overselling, etc., but they refuse to vote with their wallets and pay more for better service. We've made this bed…

The real problem is that the pricing is so complicated that it's almost impossible to pay more for better service.

In my last flight, I would have paid to select my seats if it was reasonable but there wasn't any to actually do that which didn't cost a disproportionately huge amount and wasn't bundled with other perks.

When flights have a 50% swing in pricing for seats without any add-ons -- who knows what's going on.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#13

Post by woodpanel »

IMHO: The article is too much rage-laden. The much more interesting article comes beneath the one linked (https://www.wired.com/2017/04/united-airlines-overbook-fligh...).

At the core doesn't seem to be evilness of capitalist corporations, but rather

a) the economic usefulness of overbooking

b) an uncooperative (ex-)customer (his refusal to leave being unlawful)

c) an unqualified and brutal airport police

d) the disastrous United management resulting in employees unfit to deal with situations like these (diplomacy, authority to up the bump-fee) and a company that didn't understood what kind of PR fallout this situation would bring.

See https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas... for why United had every right to remove the customer.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#14

Post by tyingq »

mnglkhn2 wrote: post #10
calbear81 wrote: post #2

If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less…

As per Matt Levine's newsletter on Bloomberg: " ... According to Bloomberg, four of United's top five shareholders are also top-five holders of American. Three of them are also top-five holders of Delta Air Lines Inc. United's top 10 holders own about 49.8 percent of United Stock between them -- and about 51.6 percent of American and 37.6 percent of Delta. American was up 3.8 percent yesterday. ... " As you can see,…

I think this particular incident will help, if only solely for the procedures around deplaning already seated passengers.

Needs more analysis, but it sounds like the airlines are somewhat limited in invoking "interference with crew members" as a threat, since the door isn't yet closed. At a minimum, they're aware now of the potential PR backlash.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#15

Post by farzadb82 »

kelnos wrote: post #3
calbear81 wrote: post #2

If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less…

This is the thing that always bothers me. By _far_, when (at least US domestic) travelers book flights, their main and often only consideration is ticket price. People claim to be annoyed by baggage fees, not being able to select their seat ahead of time, no or limited food, paid in-flight entertainment, overselling, etc., but they refuse to vote with their wallets and pay more for better service. We've made this bed…

I feel that part of the problem here is that booking sites don't tend to be fully transparent on how much any given flight really costs, beyond the initial ticketing cost. Extra costs are typically hidden and the UX is optimized for finding the cheapest possible ticket price, ignoring fees and overhead.

Tangentially, in some ways, its a fact of reality in the US that the price you see will almost never be the price you pay, which is generally higher. Americans seem to accept this as a norm and it still baffles me even after 17 years.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#16

Post by notahacker »

mnglkhn2 wrote: post #10
calbear81 wrote: post #2

If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less…

As per Matt Levine's newsletter on Bloomberg: " ... According to Bloomberg, four of United's top five shareholders are also top-five holders of American. Three of them are also top-five holders of Delta Air Lines Inc. United's top 10 holders own about 49.8 percent of United Stock between them -- and about 51.6 percent of American and 37.6 percent of Delta. American was up 3.8 percent yesterday. ... " As you can see,…

I bet United's management don't hold stock in American or Delta...

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#17

Post by panzagl »

kelnos wrote: post #3
calbear81 wrote: post #2

If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less…

This is the thing that always bothers me. By _far_, when (at least US domestic) travelers book flights, their main and often only consideration is ticket price. People claim to be annoyed by baggage fees, not being able to select their seat ahead of time, no or limited food, paid in-flight entertainment, overselling, etc., but they refuse to vote with their wallets and pay more for better service. We've made this bed…

I'd blame corporate purchasers who blindly enforce lowest price policies over the actual flyer. United has figured out how to save my employer money by sacrificing my comfort and convenience.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#18

Post by oconnore »

yock wrote: post #9
oconnore wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we as consumers are voting with our wallets The article discusses how the Justice department approved a series of mergers between the major carriers that significantly reduced consumer choice. It's funny that this "vote with your wallet", "capitalism at work" rhetoric never finds fault with these near-monopolies. You can't have it both ways: either the justice department needs to do its job splitting up big busi…

You can't talk about busting up near-monopolies without first considering the market environment which created those near-monopolies. I don't see too many people asking how we got here in the first place. Without those questions (for which I have no answers) we're doomed to end right back up here.

The whole point of capitalism is that you solve those problems from the bottom up, not from the top down. Pick one.

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#19

Post by cryptarch »

woodpanel wrote: post #13

IMHO: The article is too much rage-laden. The much more interesting article comes beneath the one linked ( https://www.wired.com/2017/04/united-airlines-overbook-fligh... ). At the core doesn't seem to be evilness of capitalist corporations, but rather a) the economic usefulness of overbooking b) an uncooperative (ex-)customer (his refusal to leave being unlawful) c) an unqualified and brutal airport police d) the di…

They violated the contract with their customer because:

a) the circumstances did not warrant his removal pre-boarding per the contract and

b) there are no clauses pertaining to post-boarding removal

IANAL so here's my source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sdtG0WyktMM

Re: How United Airlines Went from “Friendly Skies” to Throwing People Off Flights

#20

Post by dragonwriter »

calbear81 wrote: post #2

If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience. United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less…

> If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares.

I think that's not true either; the ability to readily compare fares has led to opacity in pricing by moving a growing and shifting (and inconsistent among carriers) set of services out of the base ticket price into separately charged services.

Interpreting market behavior as revealed preference assumes all the classical ideal market situations, including perfect information, which is particularly silly when the supposed revealed preference is for a status quo with deliberate selective opacity of key information.

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