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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

#561

Post by reorder9695 »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #545
baby wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a year I made more money from flying than I spent, because I kept flying ryanair or easyjet and I kept getting massive delays (one was a 20h delay, in which I spent the night at the airport squatting some of the couches in a cafe in the terminal, because small delays kept being slowly pushed on us, and we also spent 2h waiting in the final plane for it to take off, no A/C and they refused to give us water t…

Ryanair is the most punctual airline tho

Absolutely not in my experience, maybe I've just been really unlucky but I can't remember more than 1 Ryanair flight I've been on that was actually on time. Most delayed by less than 4 hours, but delayed.

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

#562

Post by Yeul »

tialaramex wrote: post #534
Zak wrote: post #262

I've had four overnight delays on three transatlantic trips this year. Fortunately, EU passenger compensation rules applied to three of them; the airline must pay each delayed passenger 600€ or convince them to take a more compelling non-cash offer. I'm not for heavily regulating non-safety details of how most industries do business, but I do think it's fair to demand the true price up front and compensation when the…

Right, I've had train companies put me in a taxi, and just eat the price of a taxi to wherever because if you want to sell tickets to travel to X, and then oops you can't get me to X well, I didn't buy your "regret" that you can't do that - I bought travel to X, so if that's still possible you'd better make it happen and too bad if that's not profitable.

I got an email from the train company that according to their records I had a delay and they put a link in it to a online form to get my money back.

I was positively surprised at their proactive communication. The money was on my account within the week!

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

#563

Post by JumpCrisscross »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #559
sershe wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't explain why the reverse happened. Everyone introduced the crappier economy tier; even the airlines initially saying they wouldn't eventually caved and now there's a crappy economy tier default. Moreover, gradually these crappy tiers converged, including some (united iirc) getting slightly less crappy following user demand. Most people want cheaper tickets and don't shop on quality. In the rare cases tha…

Price aggregators like Google Flights continue to show the crappy tier by default, which means that airlines have to offer that tier to appear competitive. No idea why Google wants to build its product this way, but there are only a few companies in this business.

One of the fundamental truths of American aviation is a significant fraction of fliers will buy the cheapest ticket every time. They’ll bitch about it. But if you cut some leg room and a few dollars off your tag, you’ll swing them from another.

Basic economy doesn’t exist because of Google Flights. It exists because it sells. Well enough that it sustained entire discount airline fleets until the majors copied their model.

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

#564

Post by missinglugnut »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #543
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…

> Set the floor too low and people fly less because it's too crappy. Seems like a great opportunity for an airline to be less crappy and make a lot of money selling tickets to all those people who are "flying less" on other airlines, no? So the question then becomes why hasn't someone done that already, if the floor really is "too low"?

The last flight I was on was American Airlines. We waited in the plane while they tried to figure out to start it because the auxiliary power unit was out, and the generator American uses to start planes with no APU was also broken, so they had to borrow one from another airline. And no APU also meant no air conditioning until the plane is started.

It was only a 30 minute delay but the heat made it miserable.

I paid for a name brand airline, paid to choose a decent seat, could have paid for more upgrades, but no amount of money short could prevent me from waiting out a delay in a hot cabin because the airline failed to maintain their equipment. The folks in first class faced the same miserable heat.

It's a market for lemons. Paying more doesn't assure quality, it just means you spent more money to get screwed. So people aren't willing to pay.

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

#565

Post by bsder »

Spooky23 wrote: post #93
hopelite wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to that; I am curious in what airlines think they will get or what motivates them to prioritize being deceptive, sneaky, dishonest, manipulative, lying, con-artists, i.e., just abusive all around? If everyone is required to provide "all in pricing" then there is no competitive advantage in being a bigger, better fraud; so must it be concluded that they think they have a competitive advantage at being the bett…

It’s really easy: it’s all about revenue maximization. Honestly, people fly too much. I’m 6’5 with a 24” shoulder - flying economy is painful for me and the poor soul stuck next to me. I don’t need to fly for business and am fortunate to have a lot of PTO. So, I fly first class, business class, or not at all. If the cost is too much, i drive. There’s virtually no east coast trip that is more unpleasant to me via car.…

You won't save time, but, man, with the price of car rentals lately you will save a TON of money depending on how long you need to stay.

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

#566

Post by michaelt »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #543
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…

> Set the floor too low and people fly less because it's too crappy. Seems like a great opportunity for an airline to be less crappy and make a lot of money selling tickets to all those people who are "flying less" on other airlines, no? So the question then becomes why hasn't someone done that already, if the floor really is "too low"?

Many airlines offer different fare classes. For a return ticket half way around the world, I can pay $1100 for Economy, $2800 for Premium Economy, $3900 for Business Class and $6900 for First Class.

It seems you have to charge a big, big premium to deliver a less crappy experience.

And even then, the experience is only better in some dimensions - your checked luggage receives the same handling no matter what ticket you buy.

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

#567

Post by [deleted] »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #543
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…

> Set the floor too low and people fly less because it's too crappy. Seems like a great opportunity for an airline to be less crappy and make a lot of money selling tickets to all those people who are "flying less" on other airlines, no? So the question then becomes why hasn't someone done that already, if the floor really is "too low"?

[deleted]

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

#568

Post by Yeul »

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.

Imagine waking up on your 20 hour flight to Tokyo early...

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

#569

Post by cogman10 »

michaelt wrote: post #566
Ajedi32 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Set the floor too low and people fly less because it's too crappy. Seems like a great opportunity for an airline to be less crappy and make a lot of money selling tickets to all those people who are "flying less" on other airlines, no? So the question then becomes why hasn't someone done that already, if the floor really is "too low"?

Many airlines offer different fare classes. For a return ticket half way around the world, I can pay $1100 for Economy, $2800 for Premium Economy, $3900 for Business Class and $6900 for First Class. It seems you have to charge a big, big premium to deliver a less crappy experience. And even then, the experience is only better in some dimensions - your checked luggage receives the same handling no matter what ticket y…

Don't forget private charted jets. Those fill the >$7k hole for anyone willing to spend through the nose and they give the best experience of any flight.

The cost is around $1k/10k per flight hour.

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

#570

Post by cogman10 »

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 with some reasonable passenger protections.

This is physically impossible. Airplanes require airports and airports only have so much space they can dedicate to flights.

An extreme example of this is the Ronald Reagan airport. How could you possibly get more competition there when it cannot grow and it's surrounded by the urban area?

That's like saying the solution to your water company monopoly is more competition. You can't bury more water lines for different companies. Someone has to own the existing lines.

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