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Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

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Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#331
post #19

About twenty years ago, I was taking a flight back from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the US. In the middle of the night the pilot got on the loudspeaker and said "hi! Having some engine trouble, so we are landing in Manaus." Manaus is in the middle of the Amazon. Needless to say, a bit scary to hear that, but we landed without issue. They told us we had two choices: the nice hotel with a shared room, or the lesser nice…

I'll never understand this attitude toward airlines. What did you want them to do in this situation? Keep flying the plane with engine issues so you could make your important meetings? It sounds like the airline did the right thing here but you were still mad?

When something like this happens, at the very least you should get the full cost of your ticket back, plus reimbursement for lodging and food, at least. Then maybe airlines would have more of an incentive to maintain their fleet better, and have backup planes so this kind of thing doesn't happen very often.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor op. /s This is the kind of attitude that puts pressure on airlines and thus pilots to fly even when situation is dubious.

Poor billion dollar airline. They can carry insurance or spend the correct amount on maintenance so this doesn't happen.

Airlines are notoriously businesses that barely make any money.

And just for your information, since you seem to be oblivious, perfectly maintained equipment can still have issues.

And whether the company owes you anything depends on the jurisdictions involved, in US you ain't entitled to much.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#333
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because airlines don't -and can't- promise incident free travel. That's a strawman of the request, not the request. The request is that, same as anything else in a proper Free Market, the price includes all costs and internalizes all direct risks. I'm paying $XYZ to be delivered from point A to point B on a given date with a ~roughly given time. I don't expect there to never ever be trouble, that's life. I do expec…

I just want to note that pretty much all airlines and travel credit cards and other similar services offer travel insurance products that deliver this exact “take care of every travel risk” coverage if you want it. You just have to pay for the real cost of that service. However, your airline ticket alone is not that. It’s just a contract to carry you from point A to point B, and that will happen at a scheduled time i…

>I just want to note that pretty much all airlines and travel credit cards and other similar services offer travel insurance products that deliver this exact “take care of every travel risk” coverage if you want it.

And that's wrong. Same as warranties on products being far, far below reasonably expected working lifetime but with the option to have an added warranty. That sort of behavior is very common in our society at this point, but it's all bad.

>You just have to pay for the real cost of that service.

Ie, you just have to except the airlines externalizing that onto society right now. Doesn't mean we can't advocate for a free market instead though.

>Everything else that you infer should be in the service contract is a fantasy. It is simply not part of the product. You can go ahead and read the contract for yourself, every airline posts them.

You are demonstrating incredibly muddled thinking here, as well as leaping into your own brand new strawmen. Saying how things "should" be by definition is not saying how they are. I argued specifically against a strawman and incorrect point, and I said that it was a "request", I never claimed the contracts were secret or didn't have all sorts of BS escape clauses that, in many jurisdictions (though not so much in the EU), are unfortunately legal.

>If I buy a ticket to a broadway show, they can refund me or give me a makeup date if there is an unexpected cancellation, but they will not reimburse all my costs of being in town on that day or compensate me for not having anything else fun to do with my time.

The broadway show doesn't involve taking physical control over your physical body in time and space. You cannot just step out and leave partway through a flight. That you'd use this as an example is either stupid or malicious.

>When I pay my electricity bill including the flat delivery charges, my utility doesn’t guarantee that power will be uninterrupted and they don’t compensate me for outages

Your utility is massively regulated and depending on jurisdiction yes, they will indeed pay for certain levels of issues, as PG&E has been discovering in California over the last few decades. You don't pay for power not delivered, you are allowed to generate your own power and store it. There are SLAs available for utility services as well.

>You can’t even really buy a consumer product and expect it to be problem-free for very much time

>Numerous products are sold with no refund possibility of any kind. Just try to get a refund from your local McDonald’s franchise. They’ll never do it. They will give you replacement food, but they will never give you your money back.

Which, again, is bad, not good as you are arguing. That bad stuff exists elsewhere does not in fact mean we can't want to improve where possible incrementally.

Yes, we live in society the whole time, and no doubt you are very smart.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand this attitude toward airlines. What did you want them to do in this situation? Keep flying the plane with engine issues so you could make your important meetings? It sounds like the airline did the right thing here but you were still mad?

I'll flip this around and say I've never understood why an airline is viewed as a special case. In the general case, if you enter into a contract and pay for a service, then don't receive that service, you're entitled to sue the service provider for your losses. For example, if I turn up to a hotel I booked only to find that the room isn't available, I'm entitled to sue the hotel for my cost in finding a reasonable l…

Airlines are quite a special case. Learned a lot from this a few months ago:

https://davidoks.blog/p/why-airlines-are-always-going-bankru...

I've had plenty of bad airline experiences and wished they gave me more for my trouble, but clearly they are unable to at current margins. If you want the market to provide a better service, it already does: you can pay tons more to fly private, either a charter or your own jet you purchased!

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#335
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll flip this around and say I've never understood why an airline is viewed as a special case. In the general case, if you enter into a contract and pay for a service, then don't receive that service, you're entitled to sue the service provider for your losses. For example, if I turn up to a hotel I booked only to find that the room isn't available, I'm entitled to sue the hotel for my cost in finding a reasonable l…

There are exceptional cases, detrimental to both you and the company. Company already swallowed a pretty serious loss, in that case arguably common sense is to let it go, sometimes sh*t happens.

If they truly were exceptional that would be fine. But long delays happen a lot, and I am sure there are things airlines could do to improve that like maintain the planes better so they aren't grounded as often and having backup planes so that if one has problems they can put customers on a different one.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand this attitude toward airlines. What did you want them to do in this situation? Keep flying the plane with engine issues so you could make your important meetings? It sounds like the airline did the right thing here but you were still mad?

I suppose consider yourself lucky that you haven't yet been inconvenienced by an issue completely within the airline's control and been offered $50 in funny money even though you had to pay out of pocket for your dingy hotel and transport in/out of the airport at 11pm/6am the next morning. And no, they won't reimburse that, because you could have slept on the terminal floor for free I on the other hand will never und…

The airlines are certainly bad actors, the problem on the other side is there are a massive number of people that are willing to waste massive amounts of time to get undeserved freebies if the boundary is too permissive. I agree with your underlying sentiment that the needle is too strongly on the side of the airlines at the moment, but I think if they shifted towards a more healthy stance they'd quickly be swamped by these abusers.

I'm curious what the game theoretic optimal here is.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#337
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the main objection as being with an airline exploring option to put a traveler on a no-fly list. Not due to anything related to security, but purely as a punishment for exploring compensation options. This, in my book, is VERY bad and and deserves public shaming of the airline, complaints to regulators, etc. etc. Everything else IMO is just fine. The airline landed the plane safely, made some promises (includi…

Read his comment again. He says he rejected the $100 and then started arguing and threatening to go to court. That's when they started exploring banning him from the airline.

> Read his comment again. He says he rejected the $100 and then started arguing and threatening to go to court.

Going to court is the standard, and usually the only, path for resolving disagreements that parties cannot easily resolve between themselves. Retaliating by putting the passenger on a no fly list deserves public shaming and pushback.

For example, a major grocery store can put people on a "do not come here again" list. But this is an easy way for a big business to hurt a person and should not be used for minor issues. I might see this "the business bans whoever it wants for any reason" as a legitimate defense, but not in a regulated business with high barrier to entry.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#338
post #19

About twenty years ago, I was taking a flight back from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the US. In the middle of the night the pilot got on the loudspeaker and said "hi! Having some engine trouble, so we are landing in Manaus." Manaus is in the middle of the Amazon. Needless to say, a bit scary to hear that, but we landed without issue. They told us we had two choices: the nice hotel with a shared room, or the lesser nice…

> A representative from that airline was asking internally if they could put me on the no-fly list.

These are the kinds of scary scenarios that people should fight and push back on opaque, unaccountable laws that other people and organisations in power try to enact in the name of safety and security, and we need to collectively fight back when someone is charged, or worse "taken away", without due process and visibility.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#339
post #335
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are exceptional cases, detrimental to both you and the company. Company already swallowed a pretty serious loss, in that case arguably common sense is to let it go, sometimes sh*t happens.

If they truly were exceptional that would be fine. But long delays happen a lot , and I am sure there are things airlines could do to improve that like maintain the planes better so they aren't grounded as often and having backup planes so that if one has problems they can put customers on a different one.

I'm with you on the delays, especially since it's one sided, company doesn't loose anything, main inconvenicence is to the user so the company has to be incentivised to be on time (it may be even beneficial for the airport, since passengers would buy more overpriced stuff from waiting area).

I was referring to the case when an engine went bad and company had to use intermediate airport and accomodate all users for the night. Also you wouldn't want to punish company hard for admiting technical issues, since that might cause them to underreport and create dangerous situations.

Re: Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand this attitude toward airlines. What did you want them to do in this situation? Keep flying the plane with engine issues so you could make your important meetings? It sounds like the airline did the right thing here but you were still mad?

I'll flip this around and say I've never understood why an airline is viewed as a special case. In the general case, if you enter into a contract and pay for a service, then don't receive that service, you're entitled to sue the service provider for your losses. For example, if I turn up to a hotel I booked only to find that the room isn't available, I'm entitled to sue the hotel for my cost in finding a reasonable l…

In the UK and EU you absolutely do not have the right to be compensated for sales or deals not closed in part due to a delayed flight.

Your entire point is completely at odds to reality. In the general case, contracts do not guarantee there are never problems, and problems happening do not create an automatic entitlement to sue. The entire point of contracts is to protect both parties.

Ultimately, if you are travelling, you are relying on *you* to get yourself there. Airlines and hotels will help, there's compensation available to some degree, but extrapolating that out to "everything is someone else's responsibility and I deserve to be compensated for everything I hoped to achieve" is pure fantasy.

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