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

151–160 of 335 posts

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#151

Post by mikeash »

jackvalentine wrote: post #140
dhfhduk wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... my first reaction to your comment was "why don't they just turn this into an actual auction, with no price limits? This seems like such a good solution that I feel like I must be missing something." However, thinking about it more, I think there's a problem with that that's hidden by the nature of the United debacle. In that situation, the passengers had tickets, and they company was trying to seat their own st…

> However, in a typical overbooking situation, there are more passengers than seats, so it's unclear who the buyer and sellers are, because none of the "sellers" actually "own" anything definitive. I'm not quite sure I'm following. When the airline overbooks then tries to pay off passengers to accept a different flight the buyer is always the airline. They're buying your seat back from you to satisfy their contract w…

I'd be utterly shocked if it ever required more than, say, $2,000 to buy enough seats.

The trick, of course, is that it has to be actual United States Dollars, not this worthless fun money voucher stuff they usually offer.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#152

Post by ww520 »

The pricing nature of an airline seat is such that the closer to the flight time the more expensive the ticket is. Consumers have been forced to pay more under this model for the longest time. Buying back seats due to overbooking should follow the same rule. Buying back seats at the time of flight departure should cost the most. If airlines follow their own pricing model, they won't have a problem. It's only when they try to bend the rules and use forces to get back those seats that people got upset.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#153

Post by madengr »

pauldino wrote: post #93
amorphid wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southwest flights aren't that cheap unless you book in advance. And they used to (still might?) have a very flexible refund policy. You could not show up for a flight, never call, and still get a full credit for the value of your ticket to any other Southwest flight in the next 12 months w/ no penalty. I really like Southwest.

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.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#154

Post by douche »

lutorm wrote: post #139
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.

Well in this case the market is distorted by the fact that regulations allow the airline to not let people board for a much smaller cost. If the airline didn't have that legal out, they would be forced to negotiate terms with each passenger whose contract they wanted to break.

They didn't even hit that limit before they sent in the goons in this case, though.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#155

Post by wbl »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #103
gregschlom wrote: post #17

I have a question for the HN crowd: what would happen if airlines sold their seats at a fixed price and let customers resell them? For the sake of the discussion let's assume that all seats are in the same class (ie: economy) - there are no business / first class seats. So the idea would be: 1. All seats are sold at the same price, no matter how early or how late you buy. The price covers all the costs associated wit…

The issue I have with that is then these middle-men buyers would step in like they do for NFL and concert tickets, buying up all/most supply almost immediately when it becomes available for any reasonably popular flight. Then they charge double the price, and there's not much one could do other than pay double or not fly.

Airlines would set higher prices in the first place.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#156

Post by ww520 »

pauldino wrote: post #93
amorphid wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southwest flights aren't that cheap unless you book in advance. And they used to (still might?) have a very flexible refund policy. You could not show up for a flight, never call, and still get a full credit for the value of your ticket to any other Southwest flight in the next 12 months w/ no penalty. I really like Southwest.

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.

The 10 minutes prior departure cancellation rule is for full refund to the original payment method, i.e. refund to credit card or cash. If you missed the flight without cancellation, you got back SW credit as refund, which has to be used within a year.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#157

Post by thunderstrike »

mikeash wrote: post #150
neurotech1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possibility is that the regional flights are only marginally profitable for United, and very slim margin for the regional carrier (Republic Airline/United Express) so they limit voucher amounts for bumped passengers. For an Embraer 170 aircraft (70 seats) the operating cost of the flight is about $2500-$3000 for the Chicago to Louisville flight. A supplementary flight with the 4 crew and any re-booked passengers…

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?

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#158

Post by landryraccoon »

SilasX wrote: post #147
rlanday wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to collude with ~100 random strangers to prevent anyone else from taking the offer until it gets to the level you want it to get to, and then agree to split it somehow? Ha ha ha.

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

I'd defect. The first person to defect wins the entire pool. It's not like any agreement among the passengers would be enforceable.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#159

Post by eh78ssxv2f »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #132
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.

Could they have averted disaster with money? It's astounding that there were no volunteers when they offered USD 800 for a seat, 800 dollars is a nice sum. Every single passenger on that airplane thought there was a catch involved, they were getting again 800 dollars in airline vouchers, which everyone knows have big gotchas attached. The airline has a trust problem, which won't improve anytime soon.

I once received the $500 voucher, and as an infrequent traveller, it was completely useless. The voucher went unused and expired. I wish they had offered me cash.

Now, I am a frequent traveller and mostly travel on business. Now again, the vouchers are useless to me.

I think the airlines should offer real cash instead of vouchers. More people would be ready to take those instead of vouchers.

Re: Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

#160

Post by [deleted] »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #132
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.

Could they have averted disaster with money? It's astounding that there were no volunteers when they offered USD 800 for a seat, 800 dollars is a nice sum. Every single passenger on that airplane thought there was a catch involved, they were getting again 800 dollars in airline vouchers, which everyone knows have big gotchas attached. The airline has a trust problem, which won't improve anytime soon.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN