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You should try your REGULATION trick with Lufthansa's customer support.
I did. It worked without issues on my end.
US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
111–120 of 678 posts
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want to sit together, pay for that privilege This is evil. There is no cost to the airline to put people who booked together next to another. It's seems like Mafia-tactic to seat people apart from another unless they pony up another $500 in upgrades. I refuse to fly with United. I understand that there may not be 10 adjacent seats when flying with a big group, but spreading out a family on purpose just so yo…
Checked luggage charges are mostly about price discrimination and not cost savings. They also free up the cargo hold so they can transport mail. Speaking of which, did you know the TSA screening area is a farce?
I’ve always wondered if it would be cheaper to just have everyone check their bags and eliminate the overhead bin. I wouldn’t be surprised if airline boarding was sped up by 2-3x this way.
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#113I'd be curious to see how the all-in price of airline tickets has evolved in recent decades. It feels like it's now commonplace to have hundreds of dollars in additional fees for things like legroom. That means a cheap ticket is a midrange ticket and a midrange ticket can end up being quite expensive unless you fall for the "we get to strap you behind the bathroom with only the clothes on your back" Saver ticket. It…
Related to that; I am curious in what airlines think they will get or what motivates them to prioritize being deceptive, sneaky, dishonest, manipulative, lying, con-artists, i.e., just abusive all around? If everyone is required to provide "all in pricing" then there is no competitive advantage in being a bigger, better fraud; so must it be concluded that they think they have a competitive advantage at being the bett…
I think the main motivation is simply that reduced transparency enables better price discrimination: As a company, you want every individual to pay as much as they are willing/capable. You explicitly don't want to sell the same service for the same price to everyone.
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#114Interesting. The deregulation of airlines is already a case study of how deregulation tends to reduce competition and hurt consumers. I suppose we’ve just given up on the concept of trying to do anything but nakedly extract profit at any cost. You’d think shareholders would be pro-competition in the end, though—I certainly would prefer that. Edit: I mean short-term profits. As a shareholder I would prefer long-term p…
What are you talking about overall, deregulation of routes has not been bad for consumers. The opposite actually.
It’s been a disaster. There are fewer routes, and flying is miserable, and getting worse every year. Crashes are way up this year.
Airlines profits are basically zero per ticket. Adding $10 per trip would be some sort of fantasy land windfall for the shareholders.
Deregulation badly broke this industry.
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to engage or justify staying in your seat, just say no thank you and end the conversation
Have you never seen a confrontation erupt from this? Or a flight attendant "suggesting" the person being asked to move?
Despite flying at least 10-15 times a month on average, I have actually never seen this happen. Reddit suggests that there is an epidemic of it. The actual problem is an epidemic of terminally online dipshits making mountains out of molehills.
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#116> Instead of the clear, itemized pricing system that passengers currently rely on, airlines could hide fees until later in the booking process… They call what we have now “clear”? Where when looking at a page of flights I don’t know how much the multitude of economy/economy+/economy++/premium economy/business/business++ seats will cost until I click on each flight? Where every carrier offers slightly different variat…
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You didn’t know how to pay for gas so you felt like you were in a country built on hidden slavery!?
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are the main points listed in the article: * Automatic Refunds for Cancellations: Airlines want to remove the requirement to provide automatic refunds when flights are cancelled or significantly altered. Passengers may instead receive only vouchers or no compensation at all, leaving them without recourse in the event of a major flight disruption. * Transparency of Fees: The airlines also aim to strip away rules…
> Automatic Refunds for Cancellations: Airlines want to remove the requirement to provide automatic refunds when flights are cancelled or significantly altered. Passengers may instead receive only vouchers or no compensation at all, leaving them without recourse in the event of a major flight disruption. Basically half of flights I've ever booked have had a cancellation. Usually the airline customer service had to re…
They'll add a footnote explaining that the term "flight" should be understood as a non-refundable ticket in a transport lottery. Similarly to how most sales of entertainment now are providing you with a revokable license to access it, rather than a reusable copy in your possession.
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [Elimination of] Automatic Refunds for Cancellations Airline cancellations. Seeing as they're talking about making a change, I assume it's airline cancellations, since no airline will currently refund you for a passenger cancellation.
Southwest used to for all tickets, for free. They’re eliminating it because the new CEO is trying to speed-run them out of business.
Even though I’ve flown a dozen or more airlines in my life, I actually felt true loyalty towards Southwest because of their amazing no fee policies. And it was worth playing the “check in quickly cuz there’s no assigned seats” game for all the other benefits. And we’ve flown so many flights as a family due to that. It removed all the stress from the ticket purchasing process.
This CEO is a freaking idiot. Is this an excel jockey/MBA a-hole like the kind that ran Boeing and Intel into the ground?
What’s wrong with the board that voted this idiot in?
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm most familiar with United. Economy Plus (which is mostly about a bit more legroom) does have a modest premium absent sufficient status that gets you it for free. But Premium Economy that gives you somewhat wider seats as well as legroom gets into the hundreds of dollars. International business has lots of benefits including legroom and lie flat seating but that usually gets into the thousands.
Nothing should be allowed to be called "Premium Economy"
Eh, they already had economy plus. Premium economy is basically traditional domestic business class on widebody international flights that have lie-flat business (Polaris) seating as well. Honestly, putting it in the economy bucket in contrast to Polaris seems pretty honest in the scheme of things.
Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees
#120> [Elimination of] Automatic Refunds for Cancellations Does this mean when the passenger cancels or when the airline cancels? If it’s when the passenger chooses to cancel, this seems fine and fair: he paid for a flight; he chose not to take it. If it’s the latter, then it seems very unfair. > Transparency of Fees This seems patently unfair. Folks should know what they’re going to be paying ahead of time. > Family Sea…
> [Elimination of] Automatic Refunds for Cancellations Airline cancellations. Seeing as they're talking about making a change, I assume it's airline cancellations, since no airline will currently refund you for a passenger cancellation.
Delta at least supplies a 24 hour grace period to cancel in case one made a mistake. I noticed they don't even charge cards until after this period