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US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

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Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#221

Post by SoftTalker »

DangitBobby wrote: post #27
eadmund wrote: post #17

> [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…

> If you want to sit together, pay for that privilege. Agreed. I think they leave too much money on the table. Use of window shades and lavatories could be behind a subscription service as well, with Sky Comfort+ affording you the privilege of multiple lavatory visits for those who have chosen the luxury IBS lifestyle. I'll let you know if I think of anything else those pesky airline passengers take for granted.

You may not remember the coin-operated public toilets that used to be fairly common, especially in places like airports.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#222

Post by geff82 »

Book trips from European websites in the future. Prices here need to include everything upfront. Which might lead to situations where you reserve a hotel room in the USA for 1500, but then only pay 1200 at checkout because the remaining 300 are the "resort fee" that will be paid at the hotel. Or take car rental: the cheaper, more complete packages for the USA are often booked in the EU at at better price.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#223

Post by lxgr »

bilekas wrote: post #188

These two in particular : > Automatic Refunds for Cancellations > Transparency of Fees How does a lawmaker justify this being in the publics interest ? I'm not even joking, I know "well lobbyist going to lobby", but this is a legitimate question. How does a regulatory body say "Yup, that's okay with us to remove" ?

Playing devil's advocate for a moment: I could imagine airlines wanting to not allow for a full refund if passengers can be booked on a "reasonably similar" connection. (I've done this myself in the past, as far as I remember; changes of a few minutes in either direction often make an entire booking refundable.)

The problem here of course would be the definition of "reasonably similar". Arriving a few hours later can be entirely fine or completely ruin a trip, depending on the circumstances.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#224

Post by floatrock »

AtlanticThird wrote: post #145
egonschiele wrote: post #130

> Family Seating Guarantees: Under current regulations, airlines must ensure that families with young children are seated together without additional charges. This would no longer be guaranteed under the new proposal, meaning families could face extra costs just to sit next to one another. This one is wild. You want to sit next to somebody's crying 2 year old? Go nuts. Change their diaper while you're at it.

I don't think that's what anyone wants. I think they just want families with young children to pay to sit together, like everyone else has to

What the airlines want is to have people pay more to sit together.

What they're gonna get is same thing that happened when luggage fees became standard: enshittification because people find ways to pay less. In the case of luggage fees, suddenly everyone's like "yeah, okay, I guess I can fit things into a carry on" and turns out there's not enough overhead space for the entire plane so the plebs in Group 4+ have mandatory gate checks. Is the labor of always gate checking bags really any cheaper than having it flow through the airport luggage infrastructure? Apparently it is slightly, but it's definitely a shittier experience.

What's gonna happen here is parent is gonna book two separate cheap middle seats and ask you when you sit down if you could trade your premium aisle/window seat for a middle seat so mom and child can be together. Because otherwise you're separating momma from baby and therefore a terrible human.

And then we all get upset at each other for trying to cost-hack instead of seeing the real enemy in the room: the pathological MBA's picking up pennies in front of the enshittification steamroller.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#225

Post by nerdponx »

wat10000 wrote: post #209
smt88 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think that would've helped. A lot of the people who won't shut up about 1984 and Ayn Rand still vote for the closest thing to monarchy they can find on their ballots.

Some people see "don't tread on me" as "don't tread on people," while others see it as "don't tread on ME specifically."

Don't tread on me but please do tread on those other people I've been indoctrinated to dislike.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#226

Post by DangitBobby »

granitepail wrote: post #195
DangitBobby wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to sit together, pay for that privilege. Agreed. I think they leave too much money on the table. Use of window shades and lavatories could be behind a subscription service as well, with Sky Comfort+ affording you the privilege of multiple lavatory visits for those who have chosen the luxury IBS lifestyle. I'll let you know if I think of anything else those pesky airline passengers take for granted.

If ya made it through all three of the sentences they wrote, you'd see the comment you replied to came around to it being reasonable to give families a break on group seating.

I did, in fact, manage to read all three. I just couldn't help but run with the devil's advocate premise.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#227

Post by nerdponx »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #143
Mistletoe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen the movie Brazil and I wish more people had so they would have voted better.

[flagged]

"Voting doesn't work" is a right wing authoritarian propaganda lie. Don't fall for it.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#228

Post by nerdponx »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
doodaddy wrote: post #16

> 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…

If each flight leg is a different price, how can the website show you the total until you select both (or all) legs?

That doesn't mean it's not opaque and complicated.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#229

Post by ghaff »

pfdietz wrote: post #193
hedora wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Safety is massively improved since the days of regulation. Fares are way down in real terms. Flying might be miserable, but that's because people realize they'd rather pay less than pay more for luxuries they don't actually value very much. Your comments remind me of the arguments Ma Bell gave to justify their monopoly. Oh noez, quality will suffer if there's telecom competition. Well, people ended up being willing t…

>they'd rather pay less than pay more for luxuries they don't actually value very much

Basically. I have used a combination of miles and co-pays to upgrade to business trans-Pacific. But most of the time going from the east coast US to Europe (especially when I can do it without a red-eye to London), I end up thinking of all the nice stuff I could do with $5K at the cost of sort of a miserable flight.

It's not that I couldn't splurge but there are other things I'd generally prefer to splurge on.

Re: US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

#230

Post by mushroomba »

bilekas wrote: post #188

These two in particular : > Automatic Refunds for Cancellations > Transparency of Fees How does a lawmaker justify this being in the publics interest ? I'm not even joking, I know "well lobbyist going to lobby", but this is a legitimate question. How does a regulatory body say "Yup, that's okay with us to remove" ?

[flagged]
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