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U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#81

Post by Symbiote »

m-ee wrote: post #48
JusticeJuice wrote: post #32

I spent $600 on a flight from London, to San Diego. There's a stopover in New York - but the connecting flight is delayed for six hours. At this point it's 10pm, but they get a plane, we board, we're actually taxing to the runway... and then the flight is canceled. Turns out it would arrive too late in San Diego for noise regulation. We all get off, I get another flight with a different company next thing in the morn…

Flew BCN to SFO with a stopover in Philly. Short ~10 min delay on the tarmac rerouting around a storm in the midwest. Flight is abruptly cancelled, the combination of the delay and the very slightly longer route caused the pilots to time out. AA refused a refund because they classified it as weather and they have no responsibility for the fact that their pilots had 20 minutes of buffer in how long they were allowed t…

File a complaint under the European rules. It should be much easier.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#82

Post by [deleted] »

JusticeJuice wrote: post #32

I spent $600 on a flight from London, to San Diego. There's a stopover in New York - but the connecting flight is delayed for six hours. At this point it's 10pm, but they get a plane, we board, we're actually taxing to the runway... and then the flight is canceled. Turns out it would arrive too late in San Diego for noise regulation. We all get off, I get another flight with a different company next thing in the morn…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#83

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
MichaelCollins wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> major TSA delays. This infuriates me. Last week I was stuck in line for TSA for an hour and a half at Sea-Tac. The TSA clowns had one guy looking at the X-rays of luggage at the speed of molasses. Am I to believe that the TSA, FAA and airlines can't coordinate to determine when gluts of incoming passengers are expected? Bullshit. Why didn't they have more TSA workers on shift? Because they don't give a shit, nothin…

It strikes me as remarkable that, in a pandemic which killed several hundred airliners worth of Americans, a lot of fuss was made about mask-related impositions, while TSA-related impositions that save a number of lives that's close to zero have become entirely normal. All War On Terror and no War On Viruses.

> while TSA-related impositions that save a number of lives that's close to zero

Are there any good estimates of the total economic costs of this security theatre?

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#84

Post by whatwherewhy »

pjc50 wrote: post #61
cnelsenmilt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People objected to the TSA, but the political climate in 2002 was too much in favor of it.

Sure, but that was then and this is now. I guess it's simply not possible to get it back into the "discourse" as a thing that should be changed.

It's a worldwide thing. EU airport security is even stricter and they're not going to let go now.

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#85

Post by jimbokun »

Benjammer wrote: post #57
gonehome wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that their whole game? If you're going to fly them you should know it. They have the cheapest fares, but they do that by upselling everything and any mistake will be expensive. If that's worth it to you (and sometimes the cost difference is big enough for it to be worth it imo) then it can be a reasonable tradeoff. Flying an extreme lost cost airline that's entire existence is predicated on this model and expec…

A large chunk of people think that every product should be certified as 100% effective and that just being able to read two numbers and see which one is the smaller number is the absolute maximum amount of work that should be required to be an informed customer of any product on the planet. Any defect in the product is "a scam," yet, anyone who pays anything more than the absolute minimum viable option is a total suc…

I see your point, but also believe markets of all kinds function better where there is price transparency and it's easy to see what you get for what you're paying, as early in the process as possible.

Makes for a more efficient economy that benefits everyone, even the producers in the long run.

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#86

Post by tastyfreeze »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #20
kaycebasques wrote: post #15

I am relieved to see that regulators appear aware of the game that Frontier seems to be playing. I flew to Denver recently and didn't need to travel heavy so I went with their cheap fare. The flight from SFO was fine. The flight from DEN to SFO was extremely frustrating. We arrived at DEN early because we got a text message warning us about major TSA delays. Literally the moment we were about to board Frontier change…

> major TSA delays. This infuriates me. Last week I was stuck in line for TSA for an hour and a half at Sea-Tac. The TSA clowns had one guy looking at the X-rays of luggage at the speed of molasses. Am I to believe that the TSA, FAA and airlines can't coordinate to determine when gluts of incoming passengers are expected? Bullshit. Why didn't they have more TSA workers on shift? Because they don't give a shit, nothin…

Airport security was much better when it was private security not government security. At least privately security had alignment with airport customer service. Airports just have to deal with TSA BS now.

I like to remind people, especially kids that don't know different, that the TSA was imposed on us and air travel used to be so much better.

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#87

Post by nielsbot »

darksaints wrote: post #50
JusticeJuice wrote: post #32

I spent $600 on a flight from London, to San Diego. There's a stopover in New York - but the connecting flight is delayed for six hours. At this point it's 10pm, but they get a plane, we board, we're actually taxing to the runway... and then the flight is canceled. Turns out it would arrive too late in San Diego for noise regulation. We all get off, I get another flight with a different company next thing in the morn…

"My internal valuation for the London to NY leg is $0.01, and NY to San Diego is $9999.99, which coincidentally is the damages limit for small claims court. Now let's be reasonable and work this out without a judge".

Wonder if you could add the last 9 mill: $9999.999

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#88

Post by pxx »

mindslight wrote: post #69
ceejayoz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ticket in this case is for a flight, not a particular seat on that flight. Think of it like buying lawn seating at a concert. Best spot is taken? Tough luck.

With a general admission concert ticket, your grouping still remains intact. I haven't flown in a while (thankfully), but the original comment makes it sound like they sell you an unassigned seat ticket, but then assign you a specific sometime down the road, perhaps maliciously.

The concert analogy is close but not perfect because the problem is that grouping necessarily puts you into premium seats.

If they can sell aisle and window seats at a premium, you can't allow people to group for free without putting people in relatively more premium seats for free.

The scale of airline seats (on a single flight) and concert tickets is incredibly different anyway, and different forms of price discrimination are required.

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#89

Post by Frost1x »

pjc50 wrote: post #61
cnelsenmilt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People objected to the TSA, but the political climate in 2002 was too much in favor of it.

Sure, but that was then and this is now. I guess it's simply not possible to get it back into the "discourse" as a thing that should be changed.

The problem is we have a culture that often overly accepts protectionist and defensive systems and is highly averse to any risk what-so-ever. When these sorts of systems are put in place, they become far more difficult to remove than erect, even if they're shown to be ineffective, wasteful, or actually add to risk.

You're not going to see many politicians vote against such systems because the second some incident occurs, their stance against protectionism will be crucified by opponents and gobbled up by the general public. This is one reason why the US defense budget continues to balloon. Anyone who pushes to reduce spending can easily be painted to the masses as someone who doesn't care about or want to secure your safety. This dynamic also plays into use of fear for power, so those in power drum up fears and explode risk in their own interest.

Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds

#90

Post by FigurativeVoid »

mcculley wrote: post #77
FigurativeVoid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work in the same building as the TSA. They were some of the rudest people I have ever been around. They would smoke in the stairwells and literally anywhere other than the smoking areas. They have the same problem as BMVs, they have literally no incentive to improve. There is no competition.

And now they are like other bad organizations (e.g., police departments that have a history of shooting unarmed people) in the respect that nobody wants to be associated with them, so they can only recruit from the bottom.

They also don't get paid when we have budget legislation. Who would want to work in a place like that?
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