Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 89 posts

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

#31

Post by mirimir »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #22
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…

Incidentally, according to one blog post I read[0], it's not actually so clear that they had the right to remove the customer. Apparently their contract reserves the right to refuse someone boarding if e.g. they are oversold. However, the contract also sets out a much more restricted set of circumstances for when a customer who _has_ boarded can be evicted, and none of those applies here. It seems like under a litera…

Yes! This in particular:

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

#32

Post by fefzero »

fefzero wrote: post #26
kelnos wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bar for basic service has dropped so far that you are no longer treated like a person if you don't pay for the extras. My wife and I saved up for a resort trip for our ten year anniversary only to find that our 4-hour flight included a seat without enough leg room for me to sit while the person in front of me reclined into my lap (I'm 6'2"). The passenger in front of me wanted to stay reclined and the flight atte…

This about sums it up for me:

"Nor does United seem better for its employees, who used to own the airline, but are now stuck enforcing cruel and arbitrary rules, and assessing the punitive fees. They are cast as wardens, trying to keep unruly passengers in line."

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

#33

Post by Notre1 »

jasode wrote: post #27
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…

>a) the economic usefulness of overbooking I realize that "overbook" can mean different things but United flight #3411 wasn't oversold to statistically offset no-shows. Instead, the plane had a capacity of 70 seats[1] and United sold all 70 seats to paying customers with zero cancellations. That's a perfect economic situation for United. What went wrong was 4 extra United employees needed a last-minute ride on that p…

That's the part that drives me crazy about this situation here. I don't see any reasonable defense for involuntarily bumping a paying customer for an employee.

Especially in this specific situation! It's a five-hour drive to Louisville from Chicago. United should have chartered a van for the employees and driven them there.

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

#34

Post by tyingq »

csydas wrote: post #25
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…

Except I'm not sure that this is entirely accurate, as has been widely discussed. United's own Contract of Carriage uses the term boarding and discusses overbooked flights: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag... However, by all accounts (including the statement from Oscar Munoz) is that the Airline Employees needed to board after the customers had already boarded. The simple matter is that Un…

Hopefully some aviation attorneys will be interviewed on this topic. I believe the fact that US airlines are considered "common carriers" also influences their ability to refuse service. The United CEO has already changed his mind about how to message this. He said this on Good Morning America today:

"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off...to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger...we can't do that."

That's hard to reel back in later.

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

#35

Post by hackbinary »

In this situation, shouldn't there have been some form of mandatory auction, where the Airline would have to bid to buy the seat back. Or do what Delta does, and form a contract with the passenger to buy back the ticket for a pre-agreed price?

I do find it shocking that the airport police got involved with what really seems to be a civil, rather than criminal matter, but then again, such are the times.

Airlines should not be allowed to use violence to enforce arbitrary, or even random rules.

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

#36

Post by droopyEyelids »

oconnore wrote: post #5
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 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…

Exactly the right point.

Businesses either need competition or regulation. If they have neither, you end up in the situation we have now. Airlines are killing all but a few chosen cities in our country by cutting flights and jacking up the prices.

On top of that, they're completely indifferent to customer service. It'd be bad for their business to care about the customers when they already have regional monopolies.

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

#37

Post by tyingq »

wccrawford wrote: post #23
tyingq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, the same people get the money in the end, but if one of their 4-5 nearly-identical businesses takes a serious hit, and the others grow, then they're learned what the market is serious about.

It's less money for them regardless of which business, because they'll have to actually offer compelling compensation for overbooking.

That's assuming this ends in this passengers favor. If that happens, and the average traveler knows that saying "No, thank you" is an option for deplaning...well.

Edit: Betting Congress will also soon raise the current $1350 limit per ticket on denied boarding. They love to find ways to seem like heroes.

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

#38

Post by skrebbel »

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…

> Ryanair

I'm not sure this comparison flies. You can say a lot of bad things about Ryanair, but in some respects they treat customers better than many airlines. Yes, they charge for everything, but as a Ryanair customer you expect that. Yes, the Dark Patterns on their website are inexcusable.

At the same time, Ryanair doesn't overbook flights (they claim the hassle costs more than an empty seat). Ryanair has a pretty good on-time track records (partly due to underpromising, but still). Back on topic, Ryanair doesn't violently remove passengers from planes.

Here in Europe we usually have 2 options:

    - Fly Ryanair/EasyJet/etc, pay to sneeze, but get from A to B
    - Fly BA/KLM/Lufthansa etc, free soda hooray, *maybe* get from A to B
If I go on holiday I'm fine with BA as well. Free booze is nice and I'll survive the free hotel if they overbook me. No need to violently drag me off.

But if I need to be somewhere at a certain time, I'll endure the crammed seats and pick Ryanair without a thought.

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

#39

Post by droopyEyelids »

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.

What question is there? We created monopolies with the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.

It stopped forcing airlines to provide service to regional airports, and paved the way for the consolidation of the industry into the monopolists as Eastern, Midway, Braniff, Pan Am, Continental, Northwest Airlines, and TWA were liquidated.

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

#40

Post by droopyEyelids »

Thrymr wrote: post #30
oconnore wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are you confusing the free market with capitalism here? Capital is striving to destroy competition; in a truly free market, consumers will counterbalance that if it is not in their interest (e.g. favor smaller airlines that give better service).

How could consumers possibly counterbalance a monopoly? The whole point of a monopoly is that you remove choice from the consumers while creating barriers to the entry of competition.
Post reply on HN