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

Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 335 posts

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#191

Post by megablast »

diogenescynic wrote: post #94
aresant wrote: post #12

This response feels knee jerk. It's been demonstrated in countless other threads (1) and articles (2) how economically important it is to overbook. Overbooking is central to airline profitability and their ability to provide flexibility - like partial refunds, or SW's "open tickets" policy on business select. As a consumer I appreciate these things and find them incredibly useful. United's response of "We'll push the…

>how economically important it is to overbook. I still don't believe this claim. A 727 seats 129, a 787 seats 290, and a 747 seats 366. That means it only makes flights slightly less expensive. I only travel a few times a year and I'd rather pay 2% more than get bumped off my flight. Why do we allow airlines to overbook but not movie theaters or other industries? This seems like an artificial advantage we've given th…

There were years where airlines were only making around $200 per flight. Not per person, PER FLIGHT.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#192

Post by SilasX »

loeg wrote: post #162
SilasX wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a high enough price, you encourage exactly those conspiracies.

That isn't how game theory works. Colluding with 100 people becomes harder the reward for defection grows higher.

And so does the incentive to try shenanigans that break the simple model of the game.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#193

Post by megablast »

madengr wrote: post #153
pauldino wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've restricted it slightly: now you have to notify them at least 10 minutes before the flight. But still no penalties - I really hope they don't have to do away with that policy since that's the main thing I like about Southwest.

If you miss a flight they cancel the whole thing, including the return flight. Bastards.

Every single airline does this. In part, because people would often book returns because they were cheaper than one-ways.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#194

Post by FireBeyond »

overgryphon wrote: post #189
linkregister wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vouchers like that are egregious. Now that it's too late, United is now offering up to $10k if they can't get someone to volunteer for less.

Up to 10k in vouchers. I don't even know how someone with a non-travel job would use that many coupons in a year.

A lot more easily when you realize what a Y-class economy fare costs (Boston to Hawaii next week? $2700+)...

Vouchers are typically only valid for full fare unrestricted economy fares or better, not V-class discount fares (display details when you browse your next flight).

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#195

Post by surement »

thunderstrike wrote: post #157
mikeash wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have just used a rental car or a taxi. Airline crews don't have to travel by air. The amount of inflexibility displayed by United is breathtaking.

Do you understand how expensive it is to take a taxi that far? Or the fact that taxi/rental car companies usually don't like you going over state lines?

Care to elaborate? I've never had any trouble going over country lines, let alone state lines, in a rental car.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#196

Post by FireBeyond »

Veratyr wrote: post #56
chmaynard wrote: post #16

Southwest Airlines has the best website, best checked luggage policy, best change policy, and now no overbooking. The big four domestic airlines all treat coach passengers like cattle, but Southwest is the least predatory. Edit: Also, consider that Southwest is very profitable despite the fact that they don't have first class or business class sections on their aircraft. Yes, passengers pay different fares. But as fa…

To offer a counterpoint, Southwest also offers the worst boarding procedure, unless travelling alone or with kids. My wife and I were going on vacation and it was impossible to get seats together as we were pretty far back in the assigned line positions and by the time we got on the plane, there were no two vacant seats next to each other. After landing we discovered that checking in at the right time might get us fu…

Yeah, even when told it's a full flight, watch single passengers sit Aisle, Window, all the way down the plane, leaving groups behind them to be spread across middle seats over several rows.

Would be better just to file people in, next seat, next seat, with exceptions for groups to go to the next row. "First available seat or seat group that will seat your group".

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#197

Post by sandworm101 »

jonknee wrote: post #63
nommm-nommm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression they didn't actually pay people bumped, only gave them a voucher for their next flight that they probably won't even use. Do they actually give cash?

They give flight vouchers, but they often have other direct expenses like hotel accommodations and food. The last time I was bumped it was ~$600 airline voucher, transportation to/from a ski resort (a perk of being bumped in the mountains!), a room for the night and a good meal voucher to cover dinner and breakfast the next day. Plus they still flew me out the next day and took care of rebooking the connection on ano…

I can better that. In the early 90s I (12) and a schoolmate (17) were flying vancouver-toronto-london with BA. I as an unaccompanied minor, him no so. The toronto-london flight was delayed overnight due to mechanical issues. They probably wouldn't have helped my friend so much but when I mentioned there was an older student on the flight from the same school they tracked him down. We got two hotel rooms and, this sounds strange but true, a stewardess. She took us to visit the University of Toronto, to which my friend was applying, and then the CN tower before our flight the following night.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#198

Post by PhantomGremlin »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #116
lisper wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. This. Oh so very much this. United could have avoided this whole debacle simply by not imposing price controls on the market for seats when it became a buyer rather than a seller.

And they could have offered the passenger free United flights for life and it still would have cost less than this embarrassing and protracted PR catastrophe ever will.

As someone on pprune.org said: Announcer on local TV said it would be less damaging if United actually crashed the plane !

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#199

Post by dopu »

johngalt wrote: post #57

The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. I've seen a number of overbooked southwest flights and people can't line up fast enough for a $300 flight credit + next available flight. I can't imagine it ever going over $1k. IMHO if any airline should continue overbooking it's SWA. No first class, no assigned seats. Most of the flights are short range with multiple flig…

The problem is overbooking, though. Corporations are getting preferential treatment by being allowed to sell services which they're not going to fulfill.

The boner people on HN have for objectivism really does get quite old.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#200

Post by [deleted] »

johngalt wrote: post #57

The problem isn't overbooking. The problem is not auctioning the seats higher when overbooked. I've seen a number of overbooked southwest flights and people can't line up fast enough for a $300 flight credit + next available flight. I can't imagine it ever going over $1k. IMHO if any airline should continue overbooking it's SWA. No first class, no assigned seats. Most of the flights are short range with multiple flig…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN