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

travelandtourworld.com

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

#81

Post by lotsofpulp »

doodaddy wrote: post #16

> Instead of the clear, itemized pricing system that passengers currently rely on, airlines could hide fees until later in the booking process… They call what we have now “clear”? Where when looking at a page of flights I don’t know how much the multitude of economy/economy+/economy++/premium economy/business/business++ seats will cost until I click on each flight? Where every carrier offers slightly different variat…

If each flight leg is a different price, how can the website show you the total until you select both (or all) legs?

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

#82

Post by hedora »

panick21_ wrote: post #23

Ironically in Europe we have some decent regulation for airlines, but the public train operating companies refuse to do the same for trains. We need to have some of those same protection and transparency requirements for train companies as well. But the governments of the big operating companies have vetoed this so far. Sometimes deregulation actually makes it easier to implement regulation.

Your trains are at least 10x better than US airlines from a passenger perspective.

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

#83

Post by thombat »

nyc_data_geek1 wrote: post #49
Mistletoe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen the movie Brazil and I wish more people had so they would have voted better.

Is your form stamped? There's no stamp on it.

This is your receipt for your husband. And this is my receipt for your receipt.

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

#84

Post by cdrini »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #63
cdrini wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think charging a fee for passenger cancellation insurance is reasonable; the airline takes on a decent amount of risk if a consumer can cancel at any time.

I don’t think anybody’s said so far that it has to be at any time. Up to X number of days out, like most hotels, I think is perfectly reasonable.

That would be reasonable, but I think I could take it or leave it. Planes fill up more than hotels would be my guess, so they'd need a buffer window of like a month? At which point the difference between having and not having cancellation protection seems negligible to me.

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

#85

Post by onionisafruit »

runako wrote: post #60
izacus wrote: 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.

Don’t forget they give you all the 10¢ bags of sun chips you can eat.

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

#86

Post by eadmund »

jjcob wrote: post #46
eadmund wrote: post #17

> [Elimination of] Automatic Refunds for Cancellations Does this mean when the passenger cancels or when the airline cancels? If it’s when the passenger chooses to cancel, this seems fine and fair: he paid for a flight; he chose not to take it. If it’s the latter, then it seems very unfair. > Transparency of Fees This seems patently unfair. Folks should know what they’re going to be paying ahead of time. > Family Sea…

> If you want to sit together, pay for that privilege 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. I refuse to fly with United. I understand that there may not be 10 adjacent seats when flying with a big group, but spreading out a family on purpose just so yo…

> > If you want to sit together, pay for that privilege

> This is evil. There is no cost to the airline to put people who booked together next to another.

Bin-packing is tough (look at Kubernetes!). Economically, giving folks willing to sit in a random seat an extra $10 and charging folks who want to sit together $10 is a wash.

Evil is, you know, torture and genocide, not efficient allocation of limited space.

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

#87

Post by nemomarx »

hopelite wrote: post #57
bsimpson wrote: post #32

I'd be curious to see how the all-in price of airline tickets has evolved in recent decades. It feels like it's now commonplace to have hundreds of dollars in additional fees for things like legroom. That means a cheap ticket is a midrange ticket and a midrange ticket can end up being quite expensive unless you fall for the "we get to strap you behind the bathroom with only the clothes on your back" Saver ticket. It…

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…

First principle is that customers will choose whoever has the cheapest flights in general, and airlines that try to market on having an inclusive price without surprise fees suffer anyway because the real cost is closer to fees.

The second is price discrimination - think current McDonald's prices. Soaking people who can afford it and letting people who are very frugal navigate your confusing system and membership etc is worth a good amount of money

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

#88

Post by hedora »

redwall_hp wrote: post #35
willvarfar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the main points listed in the article: * Automatic Refunds for Cancellations: Airlines want to remove the requirement to provide automatic refunds when flights are cancelled or significantly altered. Passengers may instead receive only vouchers or no compensation at all, leaving them without recourse in the event of a major flight disruption. * Transparency of Fees: The airlines also aim to strip away rules…

> Automatic Refunds for Cancellations: Airlines want to remove the requirement to provide automatic refunds when flights are cancelled or significantly altered. Passengers may instead receive only vouchers or no compensation at all, leaving them without recourse in the event of a major flight disruption. Basically half of flights I've ever booked have had a cancellation. Usually the airline customer service had to re…

Yeah; I wonder if this is going to lead to chargebacks.

I wonder if there are any anti-retaliation provisions, or if they’ll just have a special no-fly list for people they sold non-existent flights to, and that refused to pay up.

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

#89

Post by lumost »

doodaddy wrote: post #16

> Instead of the clear, itemized pricing system that passengers currently rely on, airlines could hide fees until later in the booking process… They call what we have now “clear”? Where when looking at a page of flights I don’t know how much the multitude of economy/economy+/economy++/premium economy/business/business++ seats will cost until I click on each flight? Where every carrier offers slightly different variat…

Not to mention the lack of standards on leg room/entertainment packages/food quality for any of the above combinations on any airline!

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

#90

Post by Y_Y »

tclancy wrote: post #61
izacus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

US flights (99% of what I have experienced) definitely can get into three figures for anything other than "middle seat, way back". They know there's at least a built-in audience of taller people who will spring for legroom on any flight over an hour. And now that I am old and tall, an aisle seat and legroom are incredibly valuable to me (don't tell 'em, ok?).

Oddly there is no such premium for wide people. I understand (somewhat) price discriminating based on the quantity of space required by the passenger (for comfort or from physical necessity), but then why does this apply to one dimension and not the other.

I'm not even talking about pay-by-weight as was famously tried between pacific islands. Nobody wants to have someone spilling over the armrest into their seat, and I'm sure plenty of people who are wider than the seat would like to fit without going first class. I'm not even so unusually sized, but cannot sit in the aisle without being hit by every person and trolley passing by.

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