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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

#391

Post by jmull »

Making flying even crappier doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Regulations that put a floor on how crappy airlines can be should be pretty neutral on competition since all the airlines would have the same rules.

That's not to say all rules are a good idea, even rules that raise quality -- raising the floor raises prices, and if the floor is raised higher than necessary, prices are higher than necessary too, making flying less affordable. Set the floor too low and people fly less because it's too crappy. Set the floor too high and people fly less because it's too expensive. You're looking for the balance point.

IMO, the floor is too low right now. I think it's a mistake to try to lower it.

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

#392

Post by terminalshort »

ghaff wrote: post #295
kumarsw wrote: post #276

I was hoping that the pendulum would swing the other way with the scandal over too many passengers bringing out their bags on a recent AA evacuation caused by a burning tire. The push to eliminate checked bags has created a chaotic cabin environment that probably exacerbated the situation. There's no sign of it getting better either. The overcrowding of overhead bins creates a prisoners dilemma where flight attendant…

As someone who has traveled for a long time, I find two things to be true: 1. People like business travelers or those with even minimal levels of status/benefits (who don't pay for checked luggage) don't usually preferentially check bags because luggage gets delayed, it's harder to switch flights when there's a weather etc. problem, and they have to wait at the luggage carousel. 2. Hard and hard-ish roll-aboards are…

For me it's not having to wait at the carousel at the end, it's having to wait in that enormous line at the beginning. I really don't understand why they make it so much work just to drop off your checked bag before the flight.

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

#393

Post by cosmicgadget »

Lio wrote: post #318

> Airlines want to remove the requirement to provide automatic refunds when flights are cancelled or significantly altered. This is wild. Are they really asking to be able to take money for a flight, then cacel it and keep the money? That's crazy.

I don't think that is going to happen. Before this new-ish regulation, the airline had discretion over how to rebook you or compensate you. Now if the delay is over 3h (iirc) they have to refund you.

I think even an arbitration court would have them reimburse you if they simply canceled a flight and kept your money.

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

#394

Post by mothballed »

unglaublich wrote: post #367
mothballed wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy solution, just charge more for a child than for an adult, no fees needed.

Currently children <11yr get a 20-50% discount/subsidy for a seat. So just rectify it to a 100% and give the seat as a bonus instead. Everyone happy?

Honestly I would be happy if the 5x the price, and I'm a parent. I hate flying with a kid and it would let me convince the wife to drive or take a boat the next time.

I basically only fly with a kid because everyone else is willing to subsidize the massive externality I impose on them.

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

#395

Post by lisper »

pstuart wrote: post #238
dfee wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film) Looks interesting!

It's a must watch movie -- there's multiple editions and you should watch the directors cut.

I know that "me too" comments are frowned upon, but I really feel the need to chime in here. Brazil is my favorite movie of all time. It is eerily prescient. It's important to keep in mind while watching it today that it was made forty years ago.

And yes, the director's cut. Absolutely the director's cut.

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

#396

Post by terminalshort »

onlypassingthru wrote: post #363

It seems like the smart play here is a three step process: 1) Deregulate claiming that competition will lower costs 2) Further consolidate carriers so that there is even less competition 3) Profit! With the corporate buyout of government, it won't be long until we see the announcement for the new AmDelTed.

This has worked so far, though. Prices are down ~50% after inflation since the airlines were deregulated.

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

#397

Post by tavavex »

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" ?

It will be some variation of the well-treaded argument of "us making more money just so happens to be in the public interest". Companies have become experts at arguing this in many different ways. You can see some examples in the article. More competition, purely hypothetically lower prices, etc.

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

#398

Post by terminalshort »

hn8726 wrote: post #382
octo888 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prices here need to include everything upfront How are you defining "everything" and "upfront"? Upfront as in the first page shown after searching? Because many, many airlines/car rental sites have a complex muti-step process of different fares, extras etc until you get to the final stage

Can you give an example? I just checked a random rental website for France and I got a very clear `From $xx` price and I could — in one step — go to checkout with that exact price by simply not selecting any other options. Sure you will have upsells but if a price for a service is presented, that should be a final price. You can't tack on "resort fees", the price presented must be inclusive of all the required charge…

But it works that way too when I book in the US.

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

#399

Post by ReptileMan »

buellerbueller wrote: post #339
ReptileMan wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay - democrats will push us in 1984 dystopia where they force you to accept that reality is what they tell you, and republicans will push us in low life high tech Cyberpunk dystopia where corporations reign supreme. Choose your poison.

oh, like that classic Democrat line "tylenol causes autism"?

We are talking about the same hepatotoxic compound that is absurdly easy to OD on but it gives negligible relief on stuff you should just power trough? That anecdotal - is barely better than a pacebo?

Personally - I think that the two main drivers of autism are people having kids later and too high rates of smart people intermarriage.

Of course Trump should not have said Tylenol, but paracetamol.

And there are some very mild hints in the data that they are correlated, but not enough sigmas.

And of course it could be Tylenol and something else with which ot interacts. And autism is so hard to be linked to anything because of how big the umbrella is and that we have such high delay to diagnosis that we will never know. Not taking medications when not really necessary is probably a good precaution principle

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

#400

Post by pfdietz »

ghaff wrote: post #229
pfdietz wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One reason flights are more miserable is planes are more heavily loaded. Before deregulation, planes were usually ~50% full. Today in the US, it's about 84%.

This is directly correlated with airfares. Were planes as sparsely loaded now as they were then then fares would be correspondingly higher. But in a deregulated environment there's a very strong incentive for increased economic efficiency to keep the fares competitive.

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