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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

#631

Post by NoLinkToMe »

jjcob wrote: post #625
NoLinkToMe wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is evil. There is no cost to the airline to put people who booked together next to another. It's seems like Mafia-tactic to seat people apart from another unless they pony up another $500 in upgrades. The idea is that an airplane needs a certain revenue to run. Suppose it's 10k, and there are 100 passengers. Each passenger thereby pays $100. However, some passengers (A) wish to sit in a big seat and are willin…

I've long accepted that Airlines charge for "better" seats. I don't care for the "good" seats. I'm happy with whatever seat they put us in. What you seem to be missing is that some airlines have started to split up groups on purpose. When they assign seats, even if 75% of the seats are still unassigned, they put people who booked together far apart from another to make them pay for seats. That's where it turns to evi…

It's the same concept though isn't it?

It effectively sorts people in group A who cares about seats (and thus pays to prevent random seating) and group B who doesn't care (and effectively gets a subsidised ticket price from A, by giving up their seating preference).

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

#632

Post by itopaloglu83 »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #538
itopaloglu83 wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what percentage of people will take them to court just to get them to refund their ticket? Airlines have full time lawyers with nothing to do but push paper around. Why are we making it harder for the consumer to resolve an issue when the flight is clearly cancelled? They just want to force you into weird store-credit style refunds so that you cannot go to a competitor or choose not to travel.

> And what percentage of people will take them to court just to get them to refund their ticket? If there is any upside to mandatory binding final arbitration, it's that proceedings are cheaper and quicker. It might be that the arbitrators decide to universally rule in favor of the airlines amidst unambiguous evidence that the airlines took money and canceled the service, but seems unlikely. It's also a huge risk on…

There are so many things to know, the world moves fast, so everything keeps changing constantly. It’s impossible for people to keep up and instead of providing a service, some airlines are trying to benefit from it knowing that folks will not claim their refunds or fee meals etc.

I wish every flight cancellation and delay emails had FAQ style “what are my choices” section where you can see your right clearly.

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

#633

Post by NoLinkToMe »

0xffff2 wrote: post #527
NoLinkToMe wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow the point. Suppose we live in a perfect world where exactly similar alternative flights are always available the moment yours gets cancelled. You still have to pay for it. And you do that by using the refund money. Cancelling a flight without refunding it, just means profiting at the expense of the customer. Businesses are able to insure their limited cost of cancellations, and price their tickets to a…

> You still have to pay for it. And you do that by using the refund money. You generally don't though? The airline will rebook you directly, even if the flight is on a different airline in my experience.

I was referring to the case that your ticket gets cancelled, not rebooked. If you are rebooked under the current rules within 3 hours (or 6 for int. flights) no refund is triggered, so that's not a proposed change that this deregulation covers.

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

#634

Post by philipwhiuk »

thieving_magpie wrote: post #201
philipwhiuk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us think you're just being cheap.

Some of us are just trying to survive financially or couldn't care less what you think. Tough luck then buddy. Have fun with the kids. There has to be some kind of middle ground here, imo. Nobody wants to sit next to kids. Families don't want to be penalized financially anymore than they already are for providing a benefit to society. We don't need to further disincentivize families and further our declining birth ra…

> Some of us are just trying to survive financially

You made choices, if you were informed about the costs that's kind of on you.

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

#635

Post by krageon »

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

Would you like to substantiate your extraordinary claim with some actual evidence?

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

#636

Post by jermaustin1 »

afavour wrote: post #593
jermaustin1 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All I do know is that if they were to stop rearranging seats, it would make the frequency of our flying go down quite a bit. I don't understand this. When you book a flight, do you not chose your seats so you sit together? Why should it be up to the airline to ensure you get a seat with your baby, that is part of planning a trip. When I rent "the cheapest car on offer", if it is a 2 seater, and I have 3 passengers,…

> if it is a 2 seater, and I have 3 passengers, that's on me for not planning for my passengers. Well, no, it’s on all of you in the sense that all of your passengers pay the price for your mistake. But as the guy behind you in line at the rental place, makes no difference to me. If a parent isn’t sat with a child everyone sat anywhere near the kid pays a price.

I 100% agree that a parent should be required to sit next to a child under a certain age, but I don't agree that is the responsibility of the airline. They should enforce that the parent/guardian traveling with the child should have to pick seats (so yes, pay for seat selection if it costs money), and if there aren't seats available, too bad.

Again, I (who paid for a selected seat assignment) should not even be asked by anyone (staff or passengers) to get up because they didn't pay for a seat with their baby.

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

#637

Post by lunias »

asdff wrote: post #580
lunias wrote: post #184

Flying has become such a terrible experience that I avoid it all costs. I'd love to take more trips, but the service is so poor that I can't justify supporting it more than absolutely necessary. I doubt anything will change though, the majority of other people seem to not really care.

As annoying as it is to be nickel and dimed I really can't complain when thinking about what is actually on offer. If I told my ancestors I was unhappy about traveling 2000 miles in 5 hours for $250 they'd rightfully slap me over the head. What a historically unprecedented capability for our species to end up on the opposite side of the planet in about a half a day.

You're right, but for me it's less a comparison between present day and before airplanes existed and more a comparison between present day and when air travel became common (sometime around the 60s). Of course we've made progress in the last 1000 years, but we've lost progress in the last 60 years. It's not a great trend.

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

#638

Post by jjcob »

NoLinkToMe wrote: post #631
jjcob wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long accepted that Airlines charge for "better" seats. I don't care for the "good" seats. I'm happy with whatever seat they put us in. What you seem to be missing is that some airlines have started to split up groups on purpose. When they assign seats, even if 75% of the seats are still unassigned, they put people who booked together far apart from another to make them pay for seats. That's where it turns to evi…

It's the same concept though isn't it? It effectively sorts people in group A who cares about seats (and thus pays to prevent random seating) and group B who doesn't care (and effectively gets a subsidised ticket price from A, by giving up their seating preference).

You could use the same argument to argue that Basic Economy passengers should be punched in the face when boarding.

Then there's a group A of wimpy rich kids (who pay to prevent getting punched in the face) and a group B who don't mind getting punched in the face (and effectively get a subsidised ticket from group A).

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

#639

Post by matthewdgreen »

abduhl wrote: post #628
matthewdgreen wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want basic economy because it means my kids will end up scattered across the airplane instead of sitting with me. So I always have to upgrade to the “normal economy” seats. I’m willing to bet a large chunk of money that a huge fraction of the airlines’ customers do the same “upgrade” because their sites are more or less built around the idea of funneling people into it. Yet on Google Flights there’s no easy o…

Google flights actually has an option for Economy (exclude Basic) now. I’m not sure when this was rolled out. Previously, you could accomplish the same functionality by adding a single carryon bag in the drop down to force non-Basic.

Thanks! I didn't notice it because it's invisible when you initiate the search, you have to search first and then go back and change the cabin class. I wouldn't say this option is hidden exactly, but it certainly isn't made particularly easy for users to find.

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

#640

Post by hedora »

tavavex wrote: post #419
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…

I'm not sure if either you or the person you're replying to are correct about safety. The way I see it, safety is completely orthogonal to regulations about routes, passenger services and so on. Safety's been on a rough upward trend throughout history as technology improves. No matter what tools are given or taken away from airlines for extracting value from their passengers, I don't see how it impacts safety, since…

This year has been bad in the US, mostly due to ATC issues.
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