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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

#401

Post by cosmicgadget »

jmull wrote: post #391

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…

That is the beauty of the floor, everyone stands on it so it becomes acceptable even if it shouldn't be.

Deregulation and disassembly of consumer protections is what Americans voted for.

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

#402

Post by renewiltord »

mothballed wrote: post #385
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? They are your kids. Why should someone who has paid to reserve their seat have to move because you were to cheap to pay to choose your seat. Also see, I’m not going to work extra hours because a parent can’t work late. Just because I have grown children doesn’t mean that I don’t have a life outside of work.

Ah yes I love modern society "they're your kids" until every busybody on earth calls CPS or police at the first sign of doing something they disapprove (happened to me because I shit you not, my kid is a different race and that was 'suspicious' to be a kidnapping -- thanks FOIA for the bodycam revealing that bullshit). Or when it comes time to tax the shit out of the grown kid made possible by the massive time and mo…

Haha, it's very true. Everyone is an individualist when it comes to paying for kids but when it comes to social security, we should raise that to high heaven so that the current kids will be slaves to the geriatric majority.

"I don't mind paying more money in taxes" they always say, knowing full well that the majority of the incidence is on the next generation.

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

#403

Post by tavavex »

bthrn wrote: post #176
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking families if their teenager could be seated separately is one thing, but knowing the airlines, they might as well start seating the toddlers in the overhead luggage compartments.

The most profitable way to fill a plane would be to knock everybody out and just pile them up in the fuselage.

That's still way too inefficient, it leaves so many gaps and barely tiles the space. As soon as we get our hands on full reconstruction, you can bet the airlines will require everyone to be ground into a slurry and pumped into the fuselage like a huge tank, and get reassembled at the destination.

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

#404

Post by charcircuit »

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.

>This is wild.

Keep in mind this rule has only been in affect for a little over a year. Airlines weren't being "wild" last year before the change.

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

#405

Post by unregistereddev »

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…

I agree with both these points, though I'm much more willing to check a bag when traveling on vacation than when traveling on business. If I were to lose a bag on vacation there wouldn't be the same consequences.

On vacation I don't have my work laptop, so it's easier to toss toiletries and an emergency change of clothes in a small under-seat carry-on bag. Besides, tourists aren't expected to smell nice and look put-together, and are more likely to have a flexible schedule that would let them go shopping if the bag doesn't turn up.

Only once has the airline lost my bag while on vacation. It was only slightly annoying and they found the bag and got it to me eventually. I've seen a coworker whose bag was lost on a business trip to India. He was stuck wearing the same clothes - a tshirt and jeans - for multiple days. This included time in the office (which had a dress code) and at least one business dinner.

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

#406

Post by [deleted] »

WorldMaker wrote: post #301
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…

Plus all the additional time wasted in planing/deplaning the cabin in general as you wait for 90%+ of passengers in rows ahead of you to grab roller bags from overhead bins. Including the time wasting bottlenecks of "overhead bins full, everyone else must now gate check" guaranteed to slow the last passengers from planing and then on deplaning the crowds stuck in the jet bridge waiting for gate checked bags. (Then th…

[deleted]

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

#407

Post by nostrademons »

nemomarx wrote: post #368
nostrademons wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then just pile them up without knocking them out.

Can you fit more people in horizontal than if they stood up and you had little straps to hang onto like a subway?

In theory yes because you can use the space at the top that would otherwise be above people's heads. No guarantee they get to their destination alive though.

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

#408

Post by AtlanticThird »

euleriancon wrote: post #279
mcaravey wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that part of the problem is a want versus a need. I don't particularly care if me and my wife don't sit together. We see each other all the time. But I don't want to have my four-year-old sitting in between two strangers, six rows in front of me where I can't see him. That's not fair to the two strangers, but also I don't trust strangers. I get the idea of paying for the privilege, but at the same time, it's…

This exactly. For parents it is not a choice, you absolutely must have a parent sitting by a young child. The effect of not automatically putting parent and children next to each other would just be making tickets more expensive for parents.

I have medical issues that require me to fly first class. It's not a choice. I don't expect you to pay for it

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

#409

Post by intalentive »

gr1zzlybe4r wrote: post #347

The airline industry is a good example of an "open" market that is really anything but. It is effectively an state-supported oligopoly. Airlines have split up every major market, usually with very little competition amongst themselves, and then have a government bailout backstop if things go wrong (this include things like favorable bankruptcy laws that let them get out of wage commitments). This is without even gett…

>The answer is actual competition

It's hard to see how that can happen when politicians take money from the rent-seekers who benefit from the status quo. "Competition is for losers", says Peter Thiel, so buy yourself a state-sanctioned monopoly (like Palantir).

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

#410

Post by cosmicgadget »

terminalshort wrote: post #396
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.

There might be other factors to consider, such as seat density and maintenance costs. Plus that deregulation was a massive change compared to whether or not they can use the AirBnB price quote model.
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