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United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

latimes.com

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Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#391

Post by Markoff »

anovikov wrote: post #307
e40 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will never do that, since it impacts profit.

Due to airlines' razor thin margins, this is simply impossible. That simple. Every single traditional airline will go bankrupt if it stopped overbooking. Unfortunately it is the greed and stupidity of us consumers that drove this market into the ground. We shouldn't blame airlines. Think about this next time when you pick 'order by price' in skyscanner...

strange we don't have these issues in Europe in really competitive market, so I don't think customer is to blame here... once again why is there so little competition in US airlines market? do current airlines have such good lobbyists blocking entrance of other companies?

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#392

Post by Markoff »

dragontamer wrote: post #381
imgabe wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fly about once a month or so over the past 2-3 years, a number of different airlines. United is the only one that consistently asks for volunteers to get bumped on every flight.

We're talking about ~0.1% to 1% probabilities here of overbooked flights. (EDIT: Apparently we're talking even smaller: 0.01% to 0.1% probabilities... actually) That's not every flight. Small enough that its too small for anecdotal evidence to be useful, big enough that it causes media stories. Every airline has some degree of overbooking necessary because flights get delayed, connecting flights lose passengers, and…

he might be flying on popular route, contradicting statistics, so you both might be right

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#393

Post by imgabe »

dragontamer wrote: post #381
imgabe wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fly about once a month or so over the past 2-3 years, a number of different airlines. United is the only one that consistently asks for volunteers to get bumped on every flight.

We're talking about ~0.1% to 1% probabilities here of overbooked flights. (EDIT: Apparently we're talking even smaller: 0.01% to 0.1% probabilities... actually) That's not every flight. Small enough that its too small for anecdotal evidence to be useful, big enough that it causes media stories. Every airline has some degree of overbooking necessary because flights get delayed, connecting flights lose passengers, and…

That's only the involuntary bumps. If you divide out the numbers for the voluntary denied boardings, United is #3 behind Skywest and Expressjet - far worse than other major carriers for overbooking flights.

This is naturally going to create a systemic problem when there's too many overbooked flights. If you have to bump some passengers from flight 1, then they try to get on flight 2, but flight 2 is ALSO overbooked, so now you have to bump or pay off even more passengers from flight 2 and put them on flight 3, which is ALSO overbooked and so on. You end up with a cascading snowball of bumped passengers.

Inevitably you run into a situation where nobody wants to volunteer, then you get a situation like the one in the news. It's not a coincidence that happened on United.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#394

Post by davidf18 »

S4M wrote: post #386
davidf18 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 24/365 Apple Store is a signal about how cool and new technologically vibrant NYC is ...we need it and use it 24/365. Repairs as well as purchases 24/365. Number of Apple Stores in Manhattan = 7 (incl. one 24/365) Number of Apple Stores in NYC 5 Boroughs = 10 Number of stores Paris (incl. La Defense) = 4 Number of stores London = 5 Number of stores Berlin = 1 Jazz/Blues/all kinds of music, a city open 24/7 full of…

> We don't do BrExit here forcing (legal) residents out. How about the Muslims?

Please cite a reference where Muslims who are living in the US legally were forced out of the country.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#395

Post by Markoff »

colmvp wrote: post #170
Gracana wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like being arrested for resisting arrest.

Anytime someone mentions that, I'm reminded of the SFPD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qhzdxYnwhg

I am not familiar with this, what was the problem with photos and stepping aside, why she didn't want to do it?

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#396

Post by InitialLastName »

S4M wrote: post #386
davidf18 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 24/365 Apple Store is a signal about how cool and new technologically vibrant NYC is ...we need it and use it 24/365. Repairs as well as purchases 24/365. Number of Apple Stores in Manhattan = 7 (incl. one 24/365) Number of Apple Stores in NYC 5 Boroughs = 10 Number of stores Paris (incl. La Defense) = 4 Number of stores London = 5 Number of stores Berlin = 1 Jazz/Blues/all kinds of music, a city open 24/7 full of…

> We don't do BrExit here forcing (legal) residents out. How about the Muslims?

We'll take them.

Among their many other contributions to the city, the Halal food trucks are a center-point of NYC's late night culture.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#397

Post by davidf18 »

Daishiman wrote: post #385
davidf18 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they call it now? Fake news? But here is a real story. I'm American and "member of the tribe" who has been to Israel many times as shown by the passport stamps, speaks Hebrew and I didn't arrive at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv to a Turkish Air flight to Istanbul 3 hours in advance of the flight. My take-on was packed away and I was strip searched down to my underwear. I was amused and happy for the security…

Unlike the US, Israel and Turkey have been actively targeted by real, no-BS terrorist activity and their security measures are not the security theater that is the TSA, nor are their policies inspired by underlying racism but actual evidence-based security policy. I'm 100% sure it's unpleasant, but their motives are far more trustworthy than the TSA's.

I would have been subject of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 2008 except that I bought a chocolate bar in a tiny store at the last minute. I picked up the chocolate bar and before I could give the cashier the money, .....

> I'm 100% sure it's unpleasant,...

Well, for me, I am only too happy when there are these kinds of security measures....

Also, the screeners are all former military (even women in Israel are drafted) and have been trained to screen according to emotional response. (emotional prosody).

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#398

Post by deong »

zeveb wrote: post #355
deong wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the computer picks 8 people, and you call out the first four on the list. One of them refuses, just like what happened here. Now what? Your solution just has the airline crew going, "Fair enough, sir, you can stay" and then calling the next name. At that point, the next person knows that refusing is allowed, so he does too. Pretty quickly, you're absolutely going to be on a flight where five of the eight refuse, a…

> So the computer picks 8 people, and you call out the first four on the list. One of them refuses, just like what happened here. Now what? You inform the refusenik that he is trespassing; if he continues to refuse to leave, you inform him that police will be waiting for him at his destination, then call out the fifth name on the list. When you arrive at the destination, he goes to jail, while the four bumped passeng…

They can do that today if they want to. I'm not seeing how the proposed solution adds anything.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#399

Post by mnm1 »

tyfon wrote: post #108
tici_88 wrote: post #17

Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. Not just the United incident(s) but also TSA, Trump travel restrictions, flights constantly overbooked, massively late etc. I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. I think anyone who doesn't really need to be in the US and/or is planning travelling with kids is likely to have some second thoughts at t…

The company I work at (in Norway) had planed to take all 70 employees to NYC this summer to celebrate a milestone reached. We just moved the whole thing to Paris instead as we had issues with all of the above, including employees that have visited "dangerous" countries. The thing that pushed everyone over was when our former prime minster was harassed[1] at the border for having been to a meeting in Iran. It says in…

US border guards don't even know what a prime minister is. There's no way they know about diplomatic passports. They have no idea about the laws they are supposed to enforce. They think they're supposed to enforce laws that don't exist. They are stupid idiots who exert their power randomly and wrongly. That's been my experience. Expecting anything else is unrealistic. What else do you expect from someone who probably barely graduated high school in the US? If these people were qualified to work at McDonalds, I assume they would.

Re: United removes first-class passenger to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

#400

Post by Markoff »

tarlinian wrote: post #269
ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Whenever I had the misfortune of flying United (an ever rarer occasion as I wizened up to the situation and later to "codeshare" flights), half the gate was at the counter, jockeying for perks and arguing status and privilege. I don't fly United all that much so when I do - I'm in "Zone 4" for boarding which means I get to observe them do pre-boarding/global services/active military/premium and then zones 1-3 - I'…

I actually agree with this...I took a flight through Amsterdam recently and was sort of shocked to see an entire planeload of passengers for a 787 line up in one line that ended up blocking half the walkway in the terminal. There's no point to this and just makes everyone's life more miserable for having to stand in a line for 20 minutes. At least with the zone boarding system you know you aren't getting on until you…

why would you stand in queue for 20 minutes? I never understood it, I am usually one of the last people boarding the plane, heck I will be sitting there in small space for many hours usually so where is the rush to be there first if I have guaranteed booked seat with alloted space for my hand baggage, so where is the rush? never understood people standing in line immediately when they start boarding as if sitting in plane would be more pleasant than sitting in boarding area

I would understand this only in first come first serve airlines without assigned seats, but I think nobody is doing this in Europe anymore, in US you stil do this?

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