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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

#501

Post by pimlottc »

mkipper wrote: post #386
izacus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundreds of dollars for legroom? Are you... sure? For what kind of flights?

I'm 6'6" and I basically treat an exit row upgrade as non-negotiable. It's just a fundamental cost of long haul travel for me if I can't swing premium economy or business class. To get some extra legroom, I paid (round trip, in CAD) $250 for a trip to Dublin this year and $320 for a trip to Hong Kong in 2023. That's a lot of money, but it was This used to be much cheaper. I remember paying ~$100 for similar upgrades…

Ah, for the days of old, when you could just ask nicely at the counter for exit row...

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

#502

Post by topkai22 »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #155
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.

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 current rule only applies to children under 14 years of age. They don't have to ask for teenagers.

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

#503

Post by lurking_swe »

zerkten wrote: post #342
hiroantag wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an odd question...families travel all the time for vacations or to see grandma and grandpa for thanksgiving. You can't leave a kid at home.

You would think that this is an odd question. It's such an odd question if grant a degree of anonymity. I've seen a similar type of question, as it relates to affordances for parents in the workplace, like no on-call for a time when a newborn is on the scene. I don't know if this is just happening because people are feeling unfairly impacted when folks on teams become parents, but I'm always bracing for these comment…

imo people asking those questions have no empathy, or they are just dumb. :)

You don’t _want_ a sleep deprived new parent on-call. A sleep deprived person is not who you want responding to an emergency, so of course others should pick up the slack temporarily. That’s what being a TEAM is all about. Kind of like playing a sport?

Now if the team is tiny the on-call impact will be a much bigger deal, and i sympathize, but in that case i’d blame management for having poor redundancy / contingency plans, NOT my colleague.

And for some reason there’s always some snarky person who chimes in with a comment like “but they chose to become parents!” A tale as old as time… so did our own parents! They chose. But i’m a human being that has empathy and i’m grateful to those who helped pick up the slack during their stressful newborn phase.

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

#504

Post by cindyllm »

jdiff wrote: post #28
throaway5445454 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The rest of the world's already discovered an easy out: negotiate by promising to do what you've already been doing for the past decade. As long as he hasn't been fed some idea to fixate on, he's an easy mark that can be placated by literally anything.

[dead]

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

#505

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

mothballed wrote: post #473
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference between funding education, health care etc which I’m all for paying taxes for and subsidizing your flight. And if you expect me to defend the police or Karyns about anything, let’s just say I grew up on NWA and “F%%% the police” and my mom constantly told me that don’t think because my White friends could get away with minor criminal mischief that I could. Well actually she said “don’t let…

If you want to deregulate airlines you have no complaint from me. I couldn't give a shit if there's anti-kid airline who's advertising message is "Fuck dem kids." If you're talking about a private company choosing who to subsidize once government regulations are removed, then I don't see how you have room to complain. It's not like taxes. You can charter a flight or rent a cessna to pilot if you don't agree to the pr…

I personally have no problem with the current state of affairs or with the state of affairs that the airlines are proposing. I fly Delta, I don’t buy the cheapest ticket so I can cancel a flight up to the time the flight is scheduled and get a credit.

From the little I do fly other airlines, only the cheapest fares don’t at least give you credits for cancelled flights.

Every airline has a credit card that gives you free luggage where the annual fee is cheaper than the baggage fee for a couple flying round trip.

My wife and I also have status with Delta (Platinum Medallion), lounge access, TSA PreCheck, Clear etc so we can do our best to not deal with families and once a year vacationers. We live in Orlando now.

But if I did have small kids. I would definitely pay for reserve seatings.

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

#506

Post by dghlsakjg »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #393
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.

Yes, But no one wants to have to go to court or arbitration to get a refund on a service that the service provider cancelled.

If AA cancels my flight, I want my money back without having to ask for it. I don't want to have to submit an application to receive AA credits that expire in 6 months, and then have to initiate legal action to get my actual cash back. Or having them say that they rebooked me on a flight three days later so they are off the hook.

The current rules make it so that the customer has the power. I can still give AA the option of rebooking me or refunding me, but it is MY choice.

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

#507

Post by mkipper »

pimlottc wrote: post #501
mkipper wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 6'6" and I basically treat an exit row upgrade as non-negotiable. It's just a fundamental cost of long haul travel for me if I can't swing premium economy or business class. To get some extra legroom, I paid (round trip, in CAD) $250 for a trip to Dublin this year and $320 for a trip to Hong Kong in 2023. That's a lot of money, but it was This used to be much cheaper. I remember paying ~$100 for similar upgrades…

Ah, for the days of old, when you could just ask nicely at the counter for exit row...

This isn't totally dead. I missed a flight last year and got bumped to a flight the next morning on some weird ticket class where I didn't get a seat assignment until the gate. The gate agent was able to give me a bulkhead seat with extra legroom at no cost. And this was with United, not some airline with a shining reputation for customer service.

So you can roll the dice and try to get a premium seat at the gate, but that's not a risk I'm usually willing to take.

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

#509

Post by rimunroe »

sokoloff wrote: post #497
rimunroe wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume this is a somewhat flippant/sarcastic response, but it completely ignores the gist of the message (well, multiple messages) you're replying to. > I say this as a parent who pays for assigned seats because we choose to buy tickets that reflect our actual level of flexibility. For what it's worth, I'm saying all this as a parent who flies on airlines where assigned seats are the only option afaik

I don’t think it does. People with flexibility to be assigned to sit next to whomever and willingness to sit in middle seats ought to be able to pay less in exchange for providing that flexibility. Their flexibility is lubricating the entire system and making it work better. Why should we charge them the same amount as people who aren’t as flexible? What I see is people who aren’t offering that flexibility arguing th…

> I don’t think it does.

Let me know if this is an unfair summarization, but the way I see it: my comments discussed how charging parents additional fees to sit near their infants is bad. Your comment proposed charging people who wanted assigned seating for that feature and allowing people who don't need that flexibility a discount. How does that address my point rather than simply re-describe the thing I've already described as the problem?

> Why should we charge them the same amount as people who aren’t as flexible?

Because that flexibility is needed more by parents and we generally want to encourage parenting and reduce the burden on them by using the power of the state to spread such costs out. IMO we don't do nearly enough of this, like with family leave, daycare, or healthcare costs.

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

#510

Post by caycep »

ardit33 wrote: post #489
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely was not worse in the 80s. Unless you mean more expensive. Yes. It DEFINITELY was more expensive. When I booked through a travel agent or over the phone with the airline, the fees were pretty transparent. I sorta feel for the airlines here because before deregulation they had to commit to unprofitable routes before they realized HOW unprofitable they would be. That cost was spread over the profitable rou…

No sure why this comment got downvoted. The 90s were more of no hidden fees at all. You paid the ticket, and that's it. Usually 2 baggages were included in the flight (standard), and food was free. US inland trips had crappy snacks, and some soda, but international ones all had food and drinks, including alcoholic ones. Prices of tickets were more expensive for sure, so air travel was more of a luxury. The era of the…

I could have gotten my decades wrong. I just remember not being able to get refunds by default, and then it was a glorious past several years where JetBlue and southwest would automagically refund my tickets back to my credit card.
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