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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

#611
post #60
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In a search just now, Delta Main r/t from ATL-LAX is $337. Delta Comfort on the same flight is $727. (Yes, it's more than 2x the price.) Obviously Comfort boards earlier, but it's not unreasonable to attribute most of the fare differential to the legroom. Checked bags are also extra for either seat.

First gets two 70lb bags and that’s often worth more than the price difference on the ticket.

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

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely love Delta. I’ll fly other airlines domestically occasionally. But I have found their customer service to be top notch and they have the best web interface/app.

What sucks in America is that basically the whole airline industry is a hub and spoke system and the airline you’re stuck with is the airline is the airline based in your city and also dominates it, which at the least prevents competition, if it’s not intentional.

In any major city - and I’ve been to most of the top 50 markets - at least the three major airlines fly. If you’re not at that airports hub, you will probably have a layover.

I use to live in Atlanta and I still fly in, out and through there often. That is the ultimate Delta hub. But you can still get to almost any other major city via the other airlines with layovers.

In fact, it would probably be cheaper. For instance it is cheaper for us to fly from MCO - ATL - SJO (Costa Rica) than it is for our friends to fly the same dates from ATL - SJO.

Charlotte for instance is an American hub, but you can still fly Delta from there to a hub and anywhere else you want.

Right now, while Orlando is not really a hub for any airline, Southwest has the most destinations. We still choose to fly Delta and most of the time with a layover in ATL.

Before you mention some small airport with only a few flights, yes I know, my parents live in south GA and the only comercial flights are three flights a day between there and Atlanta on Delta.

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

#613
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rule only applies to a single adult + child pair, and not the entire traveling party. For instance, if you have a party of 1 child and 2 adults, the airline is well within its rights to charge seat selection fees to the second adult. It’s incredibly frustrating that I have to pay an extra $40-$50, per journey, to United to sit next to my wife and child. And that’s with the current “consumer friendly” rules in pl…

I have to pay more to select the exact seats I want on a plane, so why shouldn't you?

Parents want to sit next to their kids Let's assume this for sake of argument that people don't want to sit next to other people's kids. So here's a situation no one wants. But parents will be the ones who have to pay. New legislation is saying that parents are the one who should pay for this. You make a fair point that making everyone pay to select the exact seat they want, would just be treating everyone the same way.

What I'm saying is, if you do it this way, you're now leaving the decision up to the parents. And some parents will choose not to pay. When that happens – because it will happen – I don't want to hear people complaining about having to sit next to other people's kids. Everyone was treated equally, a choice was given, a choice was made.

The other option is, we say as a society that here is a situation nobody wants, we all see that, so we're all going to collectively agree to set things up in the parents' favor a little bit, thus doing something nice, creating an outcome that is better for everyone, but at the cost that some parent seating gets subsidised by others on the plane.

Just laying out the options. Classic individualist thinking will say, I don't want the government to decide for me that I should subsidize. And thus some people will end up sitting next to somebody's crying 2 year old.

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

#614
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…

Could you share more context on the water bottle thing? That makes no sense to me.

The next morning was really hot, they made us wait in the sun for an hour outside to board the plane, then again for an hour or two in the plane before it departed (even announcing at some point they would land in Manchester instead of London, that got some good reactions out of all of us stranded in Poland). Then in the plane there was no AC and some people were almost fainting, so I stood up and went to get water myself since they were telling people that they couldn't give us water until after we take off. They stopped me and said they would call the cops and they would arrest me wherever we would land if I tried to get water bottles myself. It was ryanair or easyjet, can't remember. can't blame them, they're truly shitty airlines

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

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share more context on the water bottle thing? That makes no sense to me.

I interpreted it as they were stuck on the tarmac for a long time. People were getting dehydrated and asked for water. The FA’s refused to serve drinks on the tarmac. Passengers said “fuck it this is a health issue I’ll just get it from the galley myself”. The FA’s threatened that anyone who did that would be arrested. Passengers only options were to either deal with the dehydration or declare an actual emergency and…

This but inside the plane waiting for take off, after having waited a long time on the tarmac

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

#616
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

Not at all in my experience

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

#617
post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the one where biological sex is imaginary. Or the one where Biden's health is good enough for another four years. You pick (or keep looking the other way and losing, to the detriment of far more important issues).

FWIW, like "conservatives" the stereotypes are not universal. They may not even be typical. Biological sex clearly is not a fiction; we have lots of evidence that it's not something you choose. It's also not necessarily binary, even in humans, although it is mostly binary. I also did not believe that Biden was ready for four more years, but then again, what choice did I have? I would not have voted for Trump under an…

> I also did not believe that Biden was ready for four more years, but then again, what choice did I have? I would not have voted for Trump under any circumstances, and sitting it out would be giving my vote away.

Not sure what you mean about it being a Trump, sit out, or Biden choice when Biden wasn't an option in the final election. The choice you had was to vote for someone else in the primary, which did have plenty of other people running (albeit no major names). Of course, the better thing would've been the Democratic establishment putting a better option in front of you for the primary, so that's not directly your fault, but is the fault of "Democrats."

> You're painting with a rather broad brush.

As are you when you call the Democrats' reality "the real reality."

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

#618
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…

>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 airline doesn't provide the service it sold for reasons within its control.

Why the exception for this then? There are many situations where regulations could protect consumers and I don't understand why you have the general view against non-safety regulations.

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

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada just allowed the USA to have control over their nuclear plants and waste for 20 years. South Korea had to publicly come out and say they wanted to accept Trump's deal, but it had to have some concessions or else they would go into economic collapse! And the EU just allowed something like 30% more access from USA food which was previously considered not fit for human consumption under their health laws right? P…

I found your comment insightful and informative, until I saw this: > Please correct my figures if they're wrong. I guess the numbers could be wrong, and the comment completely unreliable.

Well if you have knowledge that proves my comment wrong, please present it.

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

#620

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" ?

Easy. "The public voted up and down the ballot for the platform that promised to gut regulations and consumer protection." Who is a single representative to deny the will of the people?

You mean this platform[0]? Not sure where it says they're going to "gut regulations and consumer protection." Perhaps you could point that part out to me?

I understood that to actually be the case, even though that wasn't actually included in the platform. Which is one of reasons I didn't vote for the current administration.

That said, I imagine that among those who did so, some folks are fine with it, some folks didn't care one way or another and some folks were unaware that this would happen.

As such, I think you're painting folks with far too broad a brush. Which is, I imagine, quite satisfying. I hope you got what you wanted out of that.

[0] https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/

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