I think the calculus is a bit different to United for a few factors:
The dollar compensation is usually a voucher good for X amount of United airline miles. Obviously, this has less value than an outright check or cash. Additionally, they’re banking on a certain subset of voucher folks never using their miles or using it like a coupon towards their next flight and paying the difference. You can ask for a direct check for the amount, but I believe the airline will drag their feet and make you go through some lengthy and painful process.
The hotel stay portion is usually through their contracted hotel partner. Again, the room cost to United is much less than the retail/desk price.
Even more ironically, that phrase was taught to Regan by a Russian, as it’s a Russian phrase/proverb. It’s like we’ve come full circle back to today’s administration.
So let me be the first to place blame at this issue with, “Thanks, Trump.”
Another factor: cost. We, as a people, pretty much screamed bloody murder to make airline travel the new Greyhound. We refused to accept high fares;we wanted flying across the country to see Grandma to be as cheap as taking the old trains. We wanted mass transit in the air.
We got it. We also got cattle-car accommodations, and treatment. Jetliners are not cheap to operate. You have to give somewhere, and what gave was comfort, service, and any modicum of proper treatment of passengers. Why? We asked for it, nay, DEMANDED it. We simply would not pay the natural price for air travel, so, we got what we asked for.
That’s not to say the airlines aren’t, by and large, a bunch of worthless scumbags. They are, IMO. But we drove the prices down, and the service, and the overall experience. Not them.
That’s entirely separate from the security theater clusterfuck.
I just want to point out how important this is. For training I felt like I was flying every couple of months for about a year and a half… and they never, never let anyone board that plane before they had volunteers and the standby employees aware of whether or not they would board. I don’t understand how they let everyone board and then made this decisions.
Also, United really needs to get their PR shit together and take their lumps. Between this and the leggings situation… oh and tell their employees, friends and family’s of their employees to stay off social media… they’re not helping.
I’d say this was going to cost them way more than a few thousand dollars (as in business not the settlements) but… probably not. Between the TSA and the airlines, flying is just miserable. I don’t see how opinions can get lower nor do I see someone paying Delta 400 dollars more than United to go to the same place. I think we all pretty much cross our fingers now.
Hopefully they leave an exception to their planes arriving late. I’ve had them hold a gate open for me and I’ve had them tell me tough luck… both cases it’s usually weather or mechanical. I’ve slept in an airport too which was not fun… I was stuck on a plane at JFK for 4-5 hours, no bathroom, no water before passengers did get some rights. So for those of you who say we have no rights, well we have more than we did then.
Even if the guy does not get a big settlement (because of the fine print in the carrier agreement) this has undone tens of millions of dollars spent on image advertising.
So what though. If you book a trip tomorrow are you going to pay Delta 500 dollars more to fly Delta instead of United?
“The thing about airlines is they have a low happiness level to begin with,” Andy Swan, the founder of social media monitor LikeFolio, told CNBC in an interview on Monday. Swan said he’s not sure United ever “bounces back” from public relations nightmares like this — because it’s really “nothing new.”
This is likely the reason why United Continental’s stock hardly reacted negatively to Sunday’s debacle, with shares actually up about 1 percent by Monday afternoon, Swan added.
We’re talking about an industry that’s already hated. You can’t really double hate them. They’re right up there with cable.
Pretty much true. It is also worth noting as Warren Buffett, has repeatedly said that collective airlines have never made a dime.
“If a capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money. But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in. You’ve got huge fixed costs, you’ve got strong labor unions and you’ve got commodity pricing. That is not a great recipe for success.
That said since deregulation, the real cost of airline travel has decreased dramatically, and the number of airline passengers has exploded. Occasionally, you get an airline like SouthWest that manages to offer good fare, and reasonable service, but for the most part, it is a race to the bottom.
That guy got beaten up and dragged off a plane.
That seems maybe 20% worse than the time I flew from Newark to Honolulu direct, and a guy two seats down crapped his pants an hour into the flight.
I flew United on Thursday. Was in Mexico on vacation and had to fly back to the West Coast.
Wednesday night, I took a nice walk along the beach and returned to my hotel room, where there was a voice mail message on my phone. From United. Telling me that the flight was overbooked and that they were looking for volunteers to take a later flight.
I was like, Fuck That Noise. Plus, I had already paid $29 to “upgrade” to Economy Plus on the connecting flight to Seattle. Because 4+ hours in Economy is bullshit when you can barely move.
You know what can fix this, in the long run? Telecommuting is one way, especially for meetings. Some meetings, sure, have to be face to face, but a lot, I’d hazard a whole lot, of business travel could be axed in favor of decent virtual meetings. That would remove a huge chunk of airline business. Another thing–which of course won’t happen for a slew of reasons, including our incessant demand for ever-faster travel, the airline industry itself, and the car industry, among other things–is an actual, functional passenger rail system. Though with our current “work until you drop, vacation time is weakness” Glengary Glen ross mindset, I guess taking an extra few days on vacation would get you fired.
But that’s the thing, really. Air travel has become such a commodity that we instinctively rebel against paying more, and in fact have altered all of our work and leisure budgets to reflect the commodity pricing of air travel. Did anyone really think that you could drive prices to the bottom and still have service that treats you like a human being? It ain’t gonna happen. Hell, now you have to pay extra to just be treated like a peasant.
I think there’s plenty of blame to go around. Frankly, security should have told United they had to fix their own mess before beating the crap out of an innocent man.
If they can get you to your destination within 1 hour of your original flight, no compensation.
If they can do it within 4 hours, they owe you 200% of your ticket price, to a Max of like $650
If they can’t do it within 4 hours, they owe you 400% of your ticket price, to a Max of $1350.
Here’s an important point. They are legally required to give you this, in REAL CASH MONEY. Not bullshit airline dollars or some shit. They HAVE to give you this much money. It also doesn’t matter if you didn’t take the deal earlier. There is no “the deal express if no one takes it, and we have to pick people randomly!” I’ve seen them try to say this. They are lying. If they pick you randomly, they have to give you this much money, in US dollars.
Now, they can give you special airline dollars instead, if you choose to accept it… But you should only accept this of they are giving you WAY more than the money you are owed, and the restrictions on its use are not bad.
I’ve had this happen to me. They will try to screw you, every single time, always. Do not fall for it. Demand actual money.
Thanks Timex for linking the rules, that’s interesting.
I was flying home to Australia from Germany one time and I missed a connection in Munich due to a delay. They rerouted me on other flights to get me home, almost a day after originally scheduled, and I was surprised that they weren’t apologetic and didn’t offer me a business class seat when I begged. When I got home I realised why I didn’t get any free extras, according to EU law not only do I get rerouted as fast as possible but I was owed hundreds of Euros in compensation. I got maybe 700+ euros back, forget the exact amount.
It pays to know the regs of the country you’re flying in when these things happen.
I think you’re missing number 4 Timex, the part that says they can beat the shit out of you and give your seat to their employees, that’s after being molested by the TSA of course and being charged extra for human-sized seats.
The key, though, for those who want the compensation (e.g., the high school kids) is that the hold-out might get nothing, because others will volunteer. The law only applies if they force you to do it, rather than taking what they offer.
So, in a scenario where you’re a person willing to do it for $500 plane bucks, if you hold out in hopes that they force you off so you get the full $1350, some high school kid might jump in and take their offer at $800 plane bucks.
Basically, you’re in a bid against your fellow passengers—the choice isn’t totally in your hands. So it isn’t a fair comparison to say it’s a choice between taking $800 plane bucks or $1350 real cash, depending on the tolerance of the individual. The person who agrees to $800 plane bucks isn’t, by default, an idiot.
Now, if you wouldn’t voluntarily do it, at all (or at least won’t do it for less than $1350 real bucks), then of course the right action is to just sit tight and get to your destination or get the legally mandated compensation.
Oh, sure, if you actually want to take a deal, because it’s good enough to you, go for it.
The rules I linked are about what happens when no one takes the deal, and they pick you randomly. Because they absolutely will lie to you, and try to get you to sign something agreeing to a far worse deal. Do not sign it.
