Original title is "United passenger threatened with handcuffs to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler", but it's too long for HN so I had to shorten it.
The customer even paid premium price to be in first class and instead of being notified at the gate, like any respectable airline would do, he's asked to give his seat to somebody "more important" than him when already seated.
It doesn't make any sense, if that "more important person" came later, he should be the one getting compensated by the airline especially when the problem occurred because United needed to change the plane for a smaller one.
I have multiple times deboarded a plane before take off. Due to change in business plans, flight delays, etc. In one case a passenger was sick on board and I asked to deboard as I didn't want to risk getting their cold.
This was all on Asian airlines. My few experiences on United have been terrible.
So in this case I'd say the regulations guiding airlines is fair. United's execution of these regulations is the problem. There are a million things United could have done in the chain of events to have avoided facing a PR backlash. As this is HN, I'd give a simple technical solution that would have avoided this whole problem:
The computer could have deboarded 8 passangers at random from order of lowest priority. United could have explained that if their employees don't catch this flight another flight with XXX passengers will be delayed / cancelled. This would allow the supervisor to use their own discretion to allow 4 of the 8 passengers to reboard.
Making the practice of "overselling" illegal is not the solution. There are times where problem could be cause by equipment swaps changing seat numbers. If we stop the airlines from overselling then travelling will become a lot more expensive.
Lets say there are 50 people in the lowest priority (fare class[0]). It'll pick from random out of these 50 people.
Come'on this is hacker news. I am sure most here have seen the mainframe based applications that entirely control every aspect of airline industry.
These things were coded by professionals over 30 years ago. Its not like these flights are being managed by some buggy wordpress plugin made by some offshore developer.
So the computer picks 8 people, and you call out the first four on the list. One of them refuses, just like what happened here. Now what?
Your solution just has the airline crew going, "Fair enough, sir, you can stay" and then calling the next name. At that point, the next person knows that refusing is allowed, so he does too. Pretty quickly, you're absolutely going to be on a flight where five of the eight refuse, and now you're back to bludgeoning elderly asian people. And at some point, the whole system becomes public knowledge, and you now add the element of fights between passengers because we all know that only four of us get to refuse.
Or you just eject all eight of them and four can later reboard. Again, what if one or more refuse.
There is a solution in place already. United just didn't choose to employ it. United offered vouchers to anyone who wanted to voluntarily give up their seats. They reportedly bumped the offer one time. They didn't bump it enough. There's your solution. I promise you everyone on that plane had a price. You can find four people who'll take say $2000 to miss a flight to fucking Louisville. Does United think $2000 is too much? I guess so, but at that point, United has a problem that can be solved by effectively buying back some seats, and sellers get to set the price they'll take. It would have been a hell of a lot cheaper to have paid them.
> So the computer picks 8 people, and you call out the first four on the list. One of them refuses, just like what happened here. Now what?
You inform the refusenik that he is trespassing; if he continues to refuse to leave, you inform him that police will be waiting for him at his destination, then call out the fifth name on the list. When you arrive at the destination, he goes to jail, while the four bumped passengers get vouchers and fly later.
No, you listen to the reason he refuses to deboard. If it seems like a good reason to the flight crew. e.g. he is a doctor, etc. then you let him stay.
> One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat.
> It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.
| [Cop:] May I see your license and registration?
| Ah certainly...
| [Cop:] What you're doing?
| Chewin' chocolate
| [Cop:] Where did ya get it?
| Doggy dropped it
| [Cop:] ...carry on
Butthole Surfers - Chewing George Lucas' chocolate
That's an understandable survival strategy, but it's also a gross injustice which should be fixed.
Again I'll offer the example of Germany: cops are basically all armed, but they're very slow to pull out their gun. Even if you run at them with a knife, they'll aim for your legs. Saves a lot of lives, with just training and culture.
United is the airline pulling this $#!^. The problem isn't the regulations. The problem is United's execution. There is a reason why United isn't popular amongst premium paying and frequent travellers. I was avoiding their flights way before all this bad PR.
Apparently, the interference with a flight crew has the same definition...only after the doors are closed.
It applies only in the "Special Aircraft Jurisdiction of the United States":
"An individual on an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States who, by assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft, interferes with the performance of the duties of the member or attendant..." [1]
An aircraft is in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States only while the aircraft is "in flight." [2]
"An aircraft is "in flight" from the moment when all external doors are closed following embarkation until the moment when one such door is opened for disembarkation, or in the case of a forced landing, until competent authorities take responsibility for the aircraft"
IANAL, but it would seem difficult to charge anyone with "interfering with a flight crew" if the door hasn't been shut. The language doesn't seem ambiguous.
No, it's not. It's a federal crime to assault a crewmember. It's a civil offence to intefere with a crewmember while they are carrying out their duties. This can be escalated to a criminal offense but this is not usual for just being difficult. Interference is usually in regards to safety.
Bumping a well behaving passenger in preference of a "more important" one doesn't really fall into either category.
Considering the passenger in this story has already consulted legal counsil, I'm thinking the lawyer agrees that he did nothing wrong.
I asked United whether I could use their lounge at SFO as they cancelled my flight to Heathrow and I was going to be waiting the best part of a day for a flight to Dulles to take an alternative that would get me home 1.5 days late.
By the look on the faces of the two lounge receptionists, you'd think I'd asked if I could take a dump on their desk. "Other people have paid membership to use this lounge" I was told in a rather disdainful way. "Sure", I said, "would you like to put a value on the fact that I will never fly with you again then?", I replied...silence - they stopped talking to me and carried on doing other stuff as if I had suddenly become invisible.
No, I did not get to use the lounge, and no, I have never flown with United since - which also means that work colleagues who travel with me are also lost to them.
“Despite the negative experience, we hope to have your continued support,” the rep concluded. “Your business is especially important to us and we'll do our utmost to make your future contacts with United satisfactory in every respect.”
Seems like they prefer a certain skill level of employee: low.
How many people were on that flight with you? If you have the right to go in the lounge then everyone else does, and obviously that's not going to work. In addition, the lounge is for those who pay for it, not for those whose flight gets cancelled. If I paid for it and all of a sudden the lounge is full of people because a flight got cancelled I wouldn't be happy.
It's your right to never fly United again, but I don't think the staff was unreasonable.
Also, there is no way to know if they were actually rude, or if you were rude first because they cancelled your flight and you asked in the wrong way.
The receptionists were likely not United employees, they were contractors with some Sodexo-type rent-a-body company. Overworked, underpaid, why would they care about someone else's first-world problems?
The agents at the lounges are United employees. Usually much better and more helpful employees than those st the gate, which is one reason I find it worth paying about $500 a year for a membership. When things get messed up, they can fix it more quickly and easily (and there's rarely a line).
Calling it a first-world problem is being a little dismissive about the situation. He/she was going to arrive 1.5 days later to his destination because of a flight cancelation. Politely asking to use the lounge as minor compensation is not an unreasonable ask. If it can't be done, it can't be done. I'm sure the OP would've been disappointed but reasonable with a different response. Something like, "I'm sorry your flight was delayed and that it's caused so much disruption to your schedule but unfortunately the company has set very strict rules on who can use the lounge."
Furthermore, if we're going to compare 'worlds,' those people working behind the counter aren't the only overworked and underpaid workers. A lot of people in the world are working in far worse conditions than behind a counter at an airport... and for less pay. Even in other low-paying jobs, I don't expect every employee to be so visually and verbally disdainful to a customer for asking a question.
The choice of words was deliberate. On one side of the counter is the OP, with a stable, well-paying job, on the other side is the on-contract employee working one, possibly several jobs that won't pay much about minimum wage. The US are a pretty harsh country to live in when you are at poverty level. Of course there are people who have it worse than a front-desk guy at an airport, but that doesn't change the fact that that person didn't have it good.
There is an overwhelming sense of superiority here on HN when it comes to the proletariat.
They will decry working conditions (if it could mean they would be subject to those conditions), but willfully ignore the gap between themselves and laborers.
>would you like to put a value on the fact that I will never fly with you again then?
As if we're supposed to expect that someone who acts like this even asked the employees nicely. The employees should be scared they'll lose their job if they don't do exactly what I say!
Oh don't worry, I tried to use my Club Pass which united mails you as a benefit for paying for their stupid credit card. They said no, we have to save space for actual club members. And this is the least bad "United screws me" story I have.
I have a paid United Club membership. Those lounges are already pretty full a lot of the time, and one of the biggest reasons I (and many of the other members I know) pay for it is exactly the situation you describe. When something goes wrong with a flight, it's well worth the cost of the membership to have helpful agents, minimal lines, and a nice place to relax. It's not about the free mediocre food. Having a place to be during a disruption is one of the primary value drivers, so they're not going to give that away. And if they let in everyone who had a disruption, it would be quickly overcrowded.
There's no excuse for them being rude about it, but I don't think your expectations were especially reasonable either.
What kind of airports are you people flying out of where the entire airport doesn't have free wi-fi and outlets (this is actually one thing about most airports that has gotten significantly better in the last 10 years), but is still large enough to warrant a United club...I feel like I've been seeing more and more of these exaggerations since the incident...flying on any American airline is kind of crappy, but complain about the right (real) problems. Otherwise, there's not chance of anything improving.
I recently flew between two NYC airports and LAX and did not encounter free wifi or plentiful outlets. They have outsourced wifi to Gogo (paid).
Some airlines will take over an entire terminal at an airport (e.g., JetBlue, Virgin America) and make it much better on both fronts. But in my experience that is not the norm.
I too do enjoy paying the bribe just to get an acceptable service! Oh, it's just like when visiting a poor post-Soviet country.
I am so glad that United officially incorporated this wonderful custom. No longer do I need to decide on the bribe amount on a per-case basis, I can now just pay once!
It's market segmentation. Most of the traveling public is cheapskates who will buy the lowest fare they see, no matter the consequences. This is an option for those who aren't purely driven by budget to pay for a better experience. I guarantee you that if United increased fares to hire enough staff to provide the same level of service you get in the lounge (with almost no line to talk to someone even in event of a major disruption), most people would switch to another airline.
It is truly funny to see how instead of solving the root cause (airline shitty attitude to customers) you treat the symptoms (paying for the consequences of shitty attitude) thus making the root cause not only not going away, but make it actually worse since you are encouraging the airline to screw you.
Something similar happened to me in CLT with US Air (now part of American) back in 2013.
My family and I (3 of us) had 1st class tickets from a podunk east coast airport -> CLT -> SFO. They cancelled the 1st leg for their own reasons (not weather), and then rebooked us on another flight that got into CLT 40 mins later. We ran to the gate of our SFO flight, but they'd sold our first class tickets out from under us, and rebooked us on a flight 12 hours later.
We felt that, as full fare, 1st class passengers, delayed for 12 hours by non-weather reason, we should have access to their lounge. Nope. I'm happy to say I never flew with them again.
Contrast that to my flight to Edinburgh on Air France last year; we arrived slightly late and were directed to the wrong line, getting us to miss the plane, arguably partly because we were late, and partly because the wrong instructions. We were offered access to the lounge for the many hours wainting for the next flight, without paying anything for food, drinks and internet, while having only paid for economy class.
Same here with Lufthansa, economy class. We missed the connection due to a delay on the first leg. We were booked to the next flight two hours later (IIRC). We asked if they could accommodate our prolonged stay. They gave us a good amount in vouchers to spend at the airport, which we used to have a nice dinner (Munich airport has some proper restaurants). The two hours fly by in no time.
>Obviously the safety of passengers can not be ensured anymore.
Let's not be dramatic. Actual airline safety issues that lead to horrific deaths are not being discussed here. This is just piss poor customer service that could be encountered on any property (e.g. hotels that have overbooked, etc).
Trying to remember the last news story about someone being asked to leave their hotel room, refusing to do so, having police called, and continuing to refuse to do so.
People being kicked out of hotel rooms because of scheduling errors does happen. It's pretty rare.
I'd be surprised were it legal to have the police drag someone out of a room they've paid for and been checked into, merely because another guest wants that room.
Sure, you can ask, but on what legal basis do you have to apply violence?
These aren't just bums off the street. You signed a contract with the airline or hotel. You haven't violated the contract by making too much noise, or selling dope out of the room. I don't think your argument is valid, but IANAL.
I doubt it's quite that simple. It's private property that serves the public. We've had court rulings saying you can't, e.g., refuse to rent your wedding venue to gay couples. If you make accommodations available to the public, there are legal responsibilities that go along with that.
I don't know what the specific regulations are surrounding hotel rooms, but certainly they're not "private property" in the same way that your house is.
Errors happen, of course, but has a hotel customer even been removed from a room post-check-in because a member of staff needs the room?
Edit: From a major chain at least. I'm sure all manner of poor decisions have been made by smaller/single location operators, though they aren't really comparable to United.
It's not only the safety part. With hotel rooms in many cases you have a choice to just go to the hotel next door. If there is only one daily flight tough luck. You'd better find a hotel room.
This strategy of yours of feigning incredulousness instead of forming an articulate thought is ingenious and hilarious but I'm not sure it will be very effective here.
er, they're getting skewered in the media. United is paying the price for their mistake.
If they're regulated, next time they drag someone off a plane, they'll say "We were just following the handbook and were in accordance with federal regulations. Take it up with the FAA"
So no, no need to regulate the industry.
Also, the body you want to regulate them (the government) routinely does much, much worse to people.[0]
Arguably, while it was United's policies that got the police involved, it was the police that did the bloodying. It's a prime example of government abuse of physical and legal power, and Chicago is apparently reviewing the whole situation to verify the officers acted in accordance with policy.
I agree; hard to see precisely how more government intervention should have been expected to fix this.
Clear regulation stating that a passenger may not be forced to leave for any but safety reasons once they're seated, rather than leaving it up to a contract, and providing sufficient funding to whichever organization enforces that regulation?
One of the more promising candidates for the cause of such great expense for various services and projects in the US versus other (generally more-regulation-heavy and more-worker-friendly) OECD states, as recently discussed on here (following a Slate Star Codex post on the topic) is the risk/expense of relying so heavily on contracts and lawsuits to sort out this kind of stuff on a case-by-case basis rather than simply stating that things will be a certain way through regulation, removing (or at least greatly reducing) the uncertainty.
There's more volatility in the stock to be sure, but I wouldn't call this "paying the price for this mistake" according to public perception just yet. I don't know airlines well enough, but if I were going to take a position, it'd be long. The initial dip in the stock price tapered off, and the current price in pre-market trading has reached parity with 4/7 despite the relative increase in volatility.
Aside from market perception, I don't think UAL is going to lose much in sales (I'd love to be proven wrong though!). Airlines do not seem to really need to compete or differentiate themselves in customer service to be profitable.
These controversies have an impact on the stock price that is like the "villain of the week" impact on a show's overall plot - it's entertaining this week, but next week no one is going to care.
I have not used United in many years after a major cluster f.. on a trip. Things like this were supposed to happen sooner or later. This airline hast a total "FU" attitude regarding customers. It is the only airline that I insist of not using.
Regarding the boarding, this was posted by a lawyer:
[Edit: This is about the recent incident, not this HN post]
1. First of all, it’s airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about “OVERSELLING”, which is specifically defined as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to deny boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.
2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it’s clear that what they did was illegal– they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.
3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you’ve boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn’t have been targeted. He’s going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.
I don't think that this was being alluded to, just a question of how this is supposedly legal, since lots of people are stating that it is without anything to back it up.
Quite simple - United defines boarding as having everyone seated and the doors closed. Until that point you haven't boarded yet, as stupid as that sounds.
It's actually far worse than just a "pattern of behavior", it is how United and other airlines (mostly US, but rest of the world is catching on) have deliberately structured their enterprise and the entire customer experience.
Everything revolves around "privilege". Even 20 years ago, this used to be bad. On most European airlines' flights, you just waited at the gate until your flight was called, then got in line (with some minor prioritization) then flew.
Whenever I had the misfortune of flying United (an ever rarer occasion as I wizened up to the situation and later to "codeshare" flights), half the gate was at the counter, jockeying for perks and arguing status and privilege.
This has apparently now been codified with (last I checked) 6 separate cattle lanes for boarding. Also, when I was booked on United business (a mistake), the flight attendants apparently had to try to find certain "special" elite passengers and suck up to them, in order to get little "stars" on their cards. How utterly demeaning!
Again, the US has been on the frontier of this deplorable trend, but the rest of the world is catching up, with Heathrow being the first airport I've seen with separate security lines for first class passengers. Munich caught up a little later.
To me, it looks like the airlines in general (and it looks like United in particular) are so embedded in this completely artificial conception of segregating their passengers by privilege, that results like the ones we are seeing are not anomalies and not even outliers, but the logical and maybe even unescapable consequences.
Dear Airlines: I just want to get from A to B. I don't care the slightest bit about your weird privilege system, and your efforts of forcing me to care by making "non-privileged" travel hellish just make me consider alternatives including not flying, but certainly not flying with your airline.
Oh, and it doesn't have to be that way. Quite a few years ago I was on a multi-legged Star Alliance trip, with several legs across the US getting me from Maui to a Lufthansa flight out of JFK. The penultimate stopover was Chicago, but the United flight coming in to Chicago was late and the United flight leaving didn't wait for me. I tried the United counter, but for the longest time there was simply no-one there, and when someone showed up they told me it wasn't their problem. ??
Desperate, I searched a bit and found a Lufthansa hotline. After I told my sob-story, the operator said "Oh, you're in Chicago, why do you need to go to JFK? We have a flight leaving Chicago in 3 hours, let me just rebook you on that" Said, done. It was a normal economy ticket.
This is exactly right. My girlfriend was extremely frustrated when WestJet (Canadian) introduced "first class". For a long long time they had gotten on just fine with a single kind of seat for every passenger.
The same tendency towards "privileging" can be seen in the constant push for two tier health care and two tier education systems (here Alberta is a bulwark, compared to Quebec).
Anyway, great post. I'd love for this kind of analysis to reach the mainstream.
And economy passengers benefit, too. I flew EWR-HKG round trip for under $700 tax-in a couple weeks ago. I don't think the economics of that flight would work without some passengers paying a whole lot more than that.
Movie theaters make money off of marked up popcorn and pop, videogames make money off of DLC and in-game purchases, etc.
When your side business starts requiring you to sabotage your main business to ensure people engage with the "side" part, is when things get interesting.
Sometimes it's better to avoid the race to the bottom altogether via regulation, ensuring that anyone who wants any improvements needs to improve things for everybody, or deal with the status quo.
That's the logic many Canadians use for vociferously opposing private schools (and I agree with it).
Yes. I know where it's coming from. The airlines can't actually differentiate on the basic transportation service: you're in the same noisy metal tube traveling at exactly the same speed, arriving at the same time.
There is some differentiation on the service you offer, bigger seats, maybe being able to lie flat.
But that's about it, and since that's all there is the airlines just start making shit up.
"Global Services (and generally 1K) members have their food orders taken first"[1]
Really, this is a thing? Just think about how ridiculous it is. And that it obviously has to be codified somewhere in the rule book. Along with all the other silly rules that aren't public. A friend of mine is a frequent traveller, and he told me a lot of the little tricks you have to pull to get good service.
"GS members have their own phone line, [..] the agents are based in the United States and are extremely helpful."[1]
Well, my Lufthansa agent was extremely helpful to "random joe with economy class ticket".
The food order thing is ridiculous but only because United can't figure out how to take orders before loading the plane. I usually sit in the last row, makes me more comfortable. And around half the time they'll run out of the better entree.
If I had the money, why wouldn't I want to fly first class and receive all the perks it entails? Hot towel? Don't mind if I do. Complimentary mimosa? Yes, please. I certainly can understand why some people choose to spend their money on first class tickets. The flight is more comfortable. The airlines wouldn't be able to offer these services to everyone on the plane unless they upped ticket prices. I, along with the majority of air travellers, feel comfortable enough in coach to not pay for all the extra service. I might pay for extra legroom but I understand why I'm paying extra for this service, I'm buying an extra fraction of the seats they weren't able to sell because they extended the legroom for X number of rows (plus additional money because they can).
Flying Lufthansa or SwissAir or Norwegian - basically any of the the European national carriers - is orders of magnitude better than the US carriers. It's like what flying was like 20 years ago.
Even the cut-rate European outfits like WOW are better.
Interesting how the western world is facing the reversal of the trend of egalitarianism that rose up in the 20th century. It seems like just a century ago we had movements all over the world that strived for equality and now the tide has turned.
The US that used to be on the forefront of defence of personal liberty is now largely lagging behind Europe and I would say even moving in the other direction. Even from the progressive movements of feminism and racial equality we can now at times hear voices arguing FOR segregation. Pretty depressive, eh?
The funny thing is, you have voices arguing for segregation from both sides - both the right-wing (white nationalists think blacks are less than human) and the left-wing (SJWs think that blacks deserve segregated spaces to avoid white micro-agressions).
I think that a large part of the flying misery has to do with airlines charging for checked bags in combination with constantly full flights. This puts the bargain shopping vacationing public in competition for overhead space with business travelers who go carry-on only.
Back in the 80s & 90s, it used to be that boarding order did not matter. You could walk up to most flights 1 minute before the door closed, and still find a space for your bag. (and you'd often get an empty seat next to you). When they started charging (and starting running more efficient, full flights), overhead space became really tight, and your boarding order (zone, whatever) suddenly became critical.
I don't see this changing anytime soon, since it mostly works to the airlines benefit. Eg, it drives membership in their frequent flyer programs and branded credit cards, as those often come with perks like earlier boarding and free checked bags. The one drawback for the airlines is the time it takes for them to turn around the plane, now that everybody is slowly looking for spots for their bags. Some airlines are now starting to offer an even lower fare class which is not allowed to use overhead space in order to allow them to turn planes around faster.
I tend to just fly first/business now so that I mostly don't have to worry about it. I rationalize it by realizing that flying is so cheap now, that a 1st class ticket costs what an economy ticket did when I was a kid (in terms of inflation adjusted money), and that economy now is essentially a new dystopian sub-class.
Some middle eastern airliners have whole terminals for privilege members, which besides the separate security check - includes spa and so on. This segregation and the experience overall borders w/ uncomfortable - at lest for me.
>> Whenever I had the misfortune of flying United (an ever rarer occasion as I wizened up to the situation and later to "codeshare" flights), half the gate was at the counter, jockeying for perks and arguing status and privilege.
I don't fly United all that much so when I do - I'm in "Zone 4" for boarding which means I get to observe them do pre-boarding/global services/active military/premium and then zones 1-3 - I've never seen anything like what you're describing. Zones get called up, ppl board in their respective zone, not sure what's there to argue.
There's a "premium" boarding lane so if someone in biz class shows up when they are already boarding the common folk :) they can cut the line which I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with that.
Also, the zone-based approach even from the "Zone 4" passenger perspective is less chaotic logistics-wise as opposed to having everyone line up at the same time.
Don't get me wrong - flying is not a pleasant experience these days but I don't see this zone-based approach as a problem.
I actually agree with this...I took a flight through Amsterdam recently and was sort of shocked to see an entire planeload of passengers for a 787 line up in one line that ended up blocking half the walkway in the terminal. There's no point to this and just makes everyone's life more miserable for having to stand in a line for 20 minutes. At least with the zone boarding system you know you aren't getting on until your zone is called so there's no point to lining up 20 minutes ahead of time just to watch other people go in ahead of you.
why would you stand in queue for 20 minutes? I never understood it, I am usually one of the last people boarding the plane, heck I will be sitting there in small space for many hours usually so where is the rush to be there first if I have guaranteed booked seat with alloted space for my hand baggage, so where is the rush? never understood people standing in line immediately when they start boarding as if sitting in plane would be more pleasant than sitting in boarding area
I would understand this only in first come first serve airlines without assigned seats, but I think nobody is doing this in Europe anymore, in US you stil do this?
You included an interesting link. I think the difference between someone who has not yet boarded and someone who has already boarded is significant in terms of the time, effort and expectations of the individual.
You're advocating for the flight crew to instruct a passenger to relinquish their seat after they have already sat in it so that a first class customer could have it? I think it's safe to say that that should be an action of last recourse...
Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. Not just the United incident(s) but also TSA, Trump travel restrictions, flights constantly overbooked, massively late etc.
I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. I think anyone who doesn't really need to be in the US and/or is planning travelling with kids is likely to have some second thoughts at this point.
This is actually a really good thing if numbers are greatly hit. It'll hopefully lead to the entire US travel industry to focus on becoming the most travel friendly place it can be. But the hit needs to be big enough for shareholders to care.
>But the hit needs to be big enough for shareholders to care.
Also time. Something like a fundamental travel industry shakeup could take decades. Here's hoping. As a Canadian, crossing that border is getting less and less appealing.
Anecdotally I've noticed that for like 5 years now my friends and family have a pretty severe aversion to flying anywhere for anything.
From needing to show up hours before the flight, to the invasive screenings, the insane restrictions on what you can and cannot bring, the sentiment that if you check any baggage it's basically as good as gone, the ever increasing cost, the delays, and even things like the worry about if your ticket will actually get you on the damn plane!
If I have to choose between a 3 hour flight, and a 12 hour drive, the 12 hour drive is what I pick almost every time now. Ignoring "disasters" (massive accident, theft, etc...) I'm going to have all my stuff, I know i'm not going to waste hundreds of dollars on a ticket that will get "rejected" at the last second, i'll have a car when I get to my destination, i can bring whatever the fuck I want, and it's a fraction of the cost.
Even with precheck (which i got as well), it didn't really change anything.
I still need to show up just as early (as my local airport often has a longer line for precheck!), i still can't pack more than some stupid amount of liquid, or have my shit thrown out because I used a X-oz plastic bag which is too big!!! I still can't check bags as they just won't ever show up, or will show up damaged, have items stolen, or completely trashed from being searched. It only makes the cost more expensive, and it doesn't really help with the "invasive screening" (oh, i don't need to take my shoes off any more... i'm still getting scanned or felt up)
Plus I had to take a day off of work to go answer a bunch of stupid questions, pay them $80-ish per person, and give my fingerprints.
I must fly into and out of only the best airports. I've only ever had one thing thrown out; I've never had anything in my checked baggage damaged (and if I'm going for more than overnight, I always check my bag, even though I could carry it on, to avoid fighting for space with other passengers' carryons); the scanning doesn't perceptibly affect me; and I regularly show up at the airport less than an hour before boarding.
I live 45 minutes from CLT, with an office 45 minutes by taxi[0]from JFK, and when I fly into JFK, I can leave the house at 5am and be at the office by 10am.
[0] account_banned on Uber the first time I ever tried to use it, so, taxi it is.
When are you flying? BOS and SEA have some of the longest TSA lines in the country. I've waited over an hour in line at both. I've gotten through BOS in 20 min but that's the exception, not the rule. AUS has gotten a lot worse too.
I fly in the morning and usually on Mondays and Tuesdays when I do fly from BOS. Departure's are usually in 7-8AM time frame. I've never had an issue getting through quickly. Maybe I'm just extremely lucky.
Some TSA clown once told me I had to throw away my water and we just stared at each other for a bit. "My water, seriously?" "Yep, your water." "Water." "Water."
Fuck the TSA and fuck the terrified Americans who keep voting to keep them.
I usually dump it in the trash at the line. I feel sorry for the cleaning staff, but whatever, fuck it. Anyone with brains understands how useless all this is, but it's the TSA, so brains are not involved.
Why is that a big deal? You're warned not to bring bottles of liquids before you even get into the TSA line. Sure the TSA is bunch of security theatre in some cases, but if there's a rule there, why do you have to be a prick about it?
Because it's a huge waste of time and resources. No one benefits. There's no reason for these clowns to be wasting my time and making people buy water on the other side of the checkpoint. It's just one huge welfare program for unemployable morons, and I have to waste two hours every time I fly to put up with their dumb horseshit.
I'm gonna throw a brick through your front window. No reason for it, just gonna do it. Hey, a guy's paying me to do it. Why you gotta be so upset about it?
Let me put this in perspective. The Twin Cities gained a new light rail passenger line a couple years ago. The construction cost for this new line came to about $1 billion[1]. I use this line every single day. It takes me to work and to home and out to dinner. I love this rail line. It makes my life better.
The TSA's annual budget is $8 billion[2]. For the cost of running the TSA for one year, eight metro areas could gain a new rail line. Every year! And what does the TSA do in return for this money? Waste my time. Waste your time. Piss me off. Humiliate me with pat-downs. Why the fuck are we paying for these clowns to do this instead of doing something useful with that money? Because of Americans who have never met a person of Muslim faith but are terrified because of the loud angry white man on TV.
Yeah, it's a big deal and I'm fucking pissed. Why aren't you?
Well, if you knew the rule before going in, then from my perspective you were the one wasting everybody's time. Sure, you can view it as a stupid rule but being stupid is not the way to combat a stupid rule.
As for TSA security theater and it's bloated budget, right on.
I had some crazy notion that maybe the guy would use his gray matter and realize that water is not very dangerous and would maybe let me sneak through with some water because water is not very dangerous. Live and learn, I guess.
You're exactly the kind of people I worry about. Accepting idiotic rules without any critical diagnosis of the bigger picture, giving up your last ounce of humility in return for "security".
Hmm, I fail to see where my statement makes the claim I accept such idiotic rules. My statement makes the claim that it is stupid to act stupid in an effort to fight stupid rules.
And then I agreed with the TSA security theater notion and bloated budget which goes against your thought I've given up my last ounce of humility in return for "security".
I suggest you read my statement again because you clearly misunderstood.
So, arguing that one should be smart when fighting stupid rules means I accept the rule? Being stupid in an effort to fight stupid rules guarantees more stupid rules in response.
What kind of nonsense are you people preaching here?
Most airports I frequent have water bottle fountains now that dispense cold, filtered water into your bottle for you. Just bring a reusable bottle or dump your water from a disposable bottle.
We are dealing with zealots who think a reward is waiting for them in heaven.
How was he supposed to know that it's really water?
Just because it is clear liquid in a sealed bottle proves nothing, even if you are willing to drink it on the spot. See above, the part about heaven and zealots.
If he said "water" repeatedly, that's not because he actually knows or cares whether it is really water. It very well may be water. He's just saying that that is the rule; even if your liquid is just water, you need to ditch it. He's not going to say all this stuff about "how do I know it's really water" because he's not there to argue; he's just trying to move the line along.
This information all seems like common sense to me.
Of course there's no reason to make people buy water on the other side of the checkpoint, but that's because it's generally ludicrous to have people buy water at all. In the USA, every airport I've been to has free water fountains both airside and landside. The rest of the world is way behind in this respect.
I was in line behind a girl flying from Schiphol to the US a couple of years ago, and they told her she needed to throw away the unopened bottle of water she'd purchased from a shop in the airport. She was arguing that she'd bought it right there and it hadn't been opened, and the guy said, "they're supposed to seal it in a bag. Maybe you can go get a bag?"
At that point, the rule isn't "you aren't allowed to bring liquids onto a plane because it might be a bomb". The rule is "you have to bring your bomb on the plane in a special bag".
I didn't say it was the greatest thing ever and yes it sucks to have to pay for the privilege of what just used to be normal. At least at my airport the whole process winds up being a lot faster.
However it did change my calculus when debating train vs plane for trips. It used to be anything under about a 10 hour train ride was a no brainer, now that's more like a 3 hour train ride.
Yeah exactly they can just arbitrarily throw all your shit out, harass you, etc. Yeah it's rare for these things to happen, but my family immigrated to the US for freedom and civil rights and lol it's more Soviet here every day.
I fly approximately 3-4 times a year, possibly more, and have for the past 8 years. I've never had a checked bag go missing. Chances a check bag is lost (not just delayed) are vanishingly small.
Precheck is a must if you travel often. On the flip side - pre-check lines are sometimes longer then "regular", esp on Monday/Friday mornings when the frequent-flying business crowd is there.
Your door-to-door time with those two trips is probably not that far apart, when you factor in time getting to and from the airport, waiting for security, waiting for luggage, and delays.
But am I wrong in thinking it shouldn't be that way? Why is the "really fast bus in the sky" so much worse in just about every way? Is it like this in other countries?
As a western person, the lack of invasive checks and procedures etc in Asia (live Japan, have travelled PRC HK Indonesia and Malaysia) was an eye opener for me.
In every case the security involved an X-ray for luggage and walking thru a metal detector. That was it.
Australia in 2014 otoh was nuts. I was taken aside and magic wanded at one airport, subject to a personal body scan (???) and patdown at another, and interrogated on my way out (apparently "company employee" was not an adequate description of my occupation).
Combined with other security theater like police leading dogs around at the gate, it made me not want to visit there again. It was scary!
I always feel like LHR security checks do their best to keep the lines moving and have a neutral or even friendly manner. I find the process to be of about the same format and duration as other airports I've passed through in ME and East Asia.
At least here in Europe when I fly inside Schengen it's not like that at all.
My experience going through security has always been much smoother than when I traveled to the US. Lines are smaller, security is more relaxed (never had to take my shoes off for example) and the security staff for the most part are much kinder.
When I flew through the US (arrived at DFW to connect to SFO, drove to LA and went from LAX to JFK) I think the only airport that everything was smooth was SFO. DFW was meh-ok but I had to go through immigration so don't want to consider it. But oh my fucking god, I pray to never have to go through LAX again, never expected to be treated like cattle with rude agents everywhere. JFK was a little bit better but not by much.
So yes, comparing my experience between LAX, SFO, JFK and DFW against ARN, MUN, TXL, SXF, BCN, FRA, CDG, AMS, ZUR and DUB... There's really no comparison, never felt mistreated or had any kind of problem with security staff or time in the queues in any of the European airports.
Is driving really cheaper? I mean I'm pretty sure the margins are pretty thin, if it's just you at least - they should balance out the more people you need to transport.
Mind you I'm from Europe, our gas prices are 4x as high and for trips to e.g. the UK or Scandinavia we have to cross a body of water. There's some toll roads too in e.g. France, and Germany wants to introduce those too.
It really depends on the location of departure, destination, and how valuable your time is.
For example, I can fly round trip from Chicago, IL (ORD) to Miami, FL (MIA) for $325 per person (tax included, no checked luggage) taking about 7 hours each way (45 minutes to airport, arrive 2 hours early, 3:15 hour flight, 15 minutes to get situated, 45 minutes to destination). To drive that would take 21 hours and 1,400 miles each way which would cost about $300 in gas for my vehicle. This is really a best case scenario for flying being potentially as cheap as driving. If you want to fly to any smaller international or regional airport without frequent direct flights, the cost can easily be a couple hundred dollars more per person.
A 3h flight is going to be much faster than a 12h drive. It may be cheaper if you fill the car with people but will cost more if you do it alone. That's assuming you consider your time to be worth nothing.
Unless I'm flying a RyanAir flight that's under $100, a tank and a half of gas to go 700-800 miles is going to be cheaper, if we're sticking in the 12-hour drive frame. And that's driving a not-particularly fuel efficient pickup truck. Gas is only $2.09 this week.
You're painting a darker picture than what it really is :) Most of the time, things go smoothly and flights are very affordable. I find it amazing that as a middle class person I can fly pretty much anywhere in the world. I can live with the inconvenience of being scolded by the TSA and US customs officers.
Actually, I wonder how much this will last considering that fossil energy will likely cost more and more and that more and more people from developing countries start to travel too.
Given that we have likely hit peak demand for fossil fuel (the theory being that the demand for fossil fuel has peaked before we have reached peak supply), this is unlikely. Oil prices are unlikely to ever reach the highs of $100+ ever again. Or so goes the theory..
In short, flight prices are unlikely to be severely effected by oil prices again.
$100 per barrel is still cheap. It had minimal impact on usage, and with most of the world trying to ramp up to a western lifestyle demand is unlikely to drop in the next 20 years.
PS: Oil is 53$ per barrel right now, 2x price spikes in commodity prices are fairly common historically.
> Oil prices are unlikely to ever reach the highs of $100+ ever again.
Since the oil price crash, investment in exploration has gone down dramatically, so I would argue the contrary.
When the current supplies start to dwindle, I would not be surprised to see oil prices strike $200 or more a barrel.
The oil crash removed the cost of exploration from oil prices, so current prices are no longer a indication of probable future supply.
There's a multi-year lag between exploration and crude coming to market. While futures/derivatives can cover that exploration for future crude extraction, there's a growing spectre of competitive alternative energy that will likely reduce the attractiveness of crude – i.e. there being higher risk of relative oil obsolescence, the anticipated return on futures diminishes, meaning less money going into exploration, even with what will be present-day high prices.
Given the lag in investment, I suspect that when the "spike" comes people will look as much to ramping up more immediate alternatives (solar, wind) than exploring for oil.
The above is all speculation of course, but the 5-10 year market forces at work are not pushing towards lower or even stable oil prices, but towards much higher ones – at least until demand drastically drops, which some figure is at least 15-20 years out.
> "Since the oil price crash, investment in exploration has gone down dramatically, so I would argue the contrary...."
The fracking technology for oil and gas is still on it's Moore's Law curve and is getting cheaper and cheaper so in fact more and more fracking is coming on-line so that we're unlikely to see prices much above $50 per barrel.
Good point. It just occurred to me that the spectre of shale that you highlight also counter-incentivises exploration, perhaps more so than alternative energy.
> Since the oil price crash, investment in exploration has gone down dramatically, so I would argue the contrary.
I keep http://oilprice.com/ in my RSS feed to keep tabs on the subject. It looks like the shale exploration is kicking up again (from the site and from friends working in the western part of ND).
> the theory being that the demand for fossil fuel has peaked before we have reached peak supply
Demand == Supply
And that's even more true¹ for stuff like oil, that has a low volumetric price. Do you really think demand peaked because people could not find more uses for the stuff?
Oil is in a peak production crash. The prices volatility is a natural consequence of it, and will always stay as high as consumers' budgets allows.
1 - That means, it's true for almost any misleading definition of those terms you can come-up with.
>Actually, I wonder how much this will last considering that fossil energy will likely cost more and more and that more and more people from developing countries start to travel too.
On the other hand, planes may become electric, and the cost of solar power is rapidly falling. If this trend continues, it will likely become cheaper to fly in the future.
Even if planes don't become electric any time soon, other demand for oil may be displaced, lowering its price.
Is it possible to make something like a jet electric? If someone knows of one I want to see a picture. Sounds like something from one of my dad's old sci-fi novels.
That Pipistrel airplane is very interesting. Not having fuel makes it better in a light crash I guess (no explosion).
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to piloting, but here on HN I've read other stories on light aircraft and training, and how forgiving it is and how it handles plays a very important factor in choosing an airplane as a trainer, no idea how that one does.
I imagine it wouldn't (need to) handle particularly differently. You can pretty much put a battery wherever you like. It seems that in the Pipistrel WATTsUP removable battery modules replace the mass of the engine block.
A nice advantage for a trainer is that unlike a combustion engine aircraft, a battery powered aircraft's mass isn't changing over time, so the learning pilot can expect a more consistent handling experience.
Yes, it's possible to make anything electric that currently runs on fossil fuel.
Making electric motors to spin propellers isn't that hard. We already do this for ships: any modern cruise liner has electrically-powered propellers (screws) that propel the ship. The challenge on a plane is getting the power to the motors. You could do a serial hybrid system, where a diesel generator makes power for the motors; this is what they do on cruise ships, but while it works well there for various reasons (including the variable-speed nature of running a cruise ship, and the usefulness of "azipods" for maneuverability), it's not likely to work so well for planes since planes in flight run their engines near full-throttle all the time (so you end up using more fuel, not less, due to conversion losses). So the idea is running the planes on batteries, like electric cars do now. The problem there is the weight of the batteries needed to store that much power is prohibitive. If someone invents battery tech that can store significantly more energy with the same weight, then the equation will change and we could very well see electric airplanes.
Eh I actually have developed this same attitude in the past few years. I'd rather drive NY to St Louis than fly because even though it's much shorter to fly, it's an uncomfortable reminder that the world is taken over by the lowest grade idiots and the highest grade capitalists. Probably nothing new, but somehow it feels different.
Gotta support the TSA make work program though, think of the poor, unemployed person who could instead be groping you in the name of security theater!
But seriously, flying sucks, I've driven 20+hrs to avoid it in the past. Usually worth it since I get to plan out stops and see old friends on the way down the west coast.
Count me as another in the "Americans who avoid air travel" bin.
I'd rather rent a car and book overnight hotels than buy a US-based airline ticket, to the extent that I have driven (with another driver) 50 hours on the road to avoid 12 hours in the air. And with the prices of airline tickets, even renting the largest passenger vehicle for a week plus two weekends and staying in mid-range hotels was less than half the money cost for four passengers. Also, we got to see Oklahoma in its "everything is on fire" season.
That is the extent to which air travel has fallen. I would rather drive across a state that is literally on fire than fly an airline in the US. I would rather piss at a New Mexico low-water-use rest stop than in an airliner's toilet. I would rather be surrounded by an entire herd of leather-clad hog-riding bikers in the middle of nowhere than put a laptop or decent camera in checked baggage. And if I ever get forcibly dragged out of my seat by some thug, I'd like the cops to be on my side.
> I wonder how much this will last considering that fossil energy will likely cost more and more and that more and more people from developing countries start to travel too.
Actually I think the cost of fuel to fly a passenger from New York to London will be cheaper in 30 years, for two reasons: (a) Motor vehicles will no longer be powered by gasoline; and (B) planes will continue to become more fuel efficient.
> Actually, I wonder how much this will last considering that fossil energy will likely cost more and more and that more and more people from developing countries start to travel too.
When I was flying back from Paris, I sat next to an Airbus engineer who was working on retrofitting jet engines to run on a biofuel produced via fermentation rather than normal fuel.
No clue how far along that project is or how promising it is, but there are folks in the industry thinking about this problem.
IF the VLJ (Very Light Jet) segment would ever fully blossom a major Uber-style disruption would be possible.
The biggest thing that could prevent this welcomed development? The government. Specifically that the FAA is likely to clamp down on "Uber Air Taxi" market and declare them common carriers.
Nonsense. The FAA actively encourages general aviation and small air charters. They bent over backwards to help the VLJ manufacturers through the certification process. The VLJ segment failed (so far) because they're still too expensive, too slow, and too dangerous. But perhaps further improvements in engines and lightweight materials will eventually make it viable?
The operating costs of a VLJ are still insanely huge. Example: a piston plane - SR22 can fly 200mph for 1200 miles on one tank of fuel. Approximate cost of that flight including amortised repair and maintenance costs: $1000. A VLJ, like SF50 can do that same flight at 320mph, but at an amortized cost of about $2600. Mostly it is due to engine overhaul costs. Overhauling a piston engine like in an SR22 is about $40k and done about every 2000 hours. Overhauling a jet like the in the SF50 is about $700k, and done every 4000 hours.
Until that comes down, jets will simply not approach uber-useful affordability for even people who buy full-fare first class seats.
(Fuel consumption is also much higher both in gal/h and in $/hr for jets compared to pistons)
And piston planes are not nearly as useful for air taxi due to them being unable to fly high enough to avoid most weather. Oh and in general turbines are an order of magnitude less likely to fail per hour.
Cruise missile turbine engines have a design operating life of only a few hours, use special stabilized gel fuel, and optimize for performance over cost. I'm skeptical as to whether those will prove to be a good basis for developing cheaper VLJ engines.
> Specifically that the FAA is likely to clamp down on "Uber Air Taxi" market and declare them common carriers.
The FAA has some really arcane rules, which is why aviation law is an actual speciality. Like, for instance, as a private pilot I can't fly a coworker with me to a conference and be reimbursed by my employer, but I can fly just myself and be reimbursed. There's a lot of subtleties to the FARs.
But if you're talking about private pilots flying people around like Uber drivers do, I can understand why they would clamp down on that.
Commercial and Air Transport pilots have much more rigorous standards than private pilots do, including stricter medical requirements and more thorough yearly medical exams. Private pilots will soon be able to get by with just an annual physical at a family doctor after their initial medical, whereas ATPs have to have a yearly EKG done, for instance. There's also more thorough training, higher hour requirements, etc.
Basically, people and equipment flying passengers are held to the highest standards (sometimes, maybe too high) which is one reason commercial aviation is so safe, and the FAA does not want private pilots who may not meet those standards running underground, fly-by-night airlines. All it takes is one crash wiping out a family in an "uber air taxi," and maybe a few people on the ground if it hits a house or something. In addition to being a tragedy the people involved and aviation in general, it would bring a ton of negative publicity to the relevant licensing agencies followed by mountains of lawsuits.
Without massive changes to the current aviation legal system, I can't see any way an "Uber air taxi" could work. Unlike a lot of cities which may not fully enforce a prohibition on services like Uber, the FAA will bring the wrath of God down on anyone they find willfully breaking the rules.
pilots not licensed for commerical people transport are forbidden from taking money to fly people places. Planes that do fly people places from money are either forced to use the TSA or provide "equivilent security".
Man, I'm not sure if your home airport is not very good, you don't travel that often, or if you just have a higher base level of anxiety or what- but any drive over 4 hours and I'm on the lookout to see if I can fly there.
I frequently go from Portland to San Jose and back in the same day- I get meetings done and am home in time to put my kids to bed. I also just generally fly pretty frequently. I've got an Arab name and my dad comes from 'one of those countries'. I lived in that country for a few years as a child, and I've visited a few of 'those countries' in the last three or for years. I've literally not been hassled beyond the occasional extended screening XXXX on my boarding pass- like, maybe 2 times in the last three years. I have been bumped from a flight zero times in my entire life.
150 years go if you wanted to travel from California to Oregon you'd be going up the Applegate Trail and the TSA wouldn't even be top 10 annoyances along the way for travel. I say that semi in jest, nor am I endorsing the TSA in anyway shape or form. But frankly, if you're worried about getting bumped or hassled by the TSA I think you're worried about the wrong thing or you've got a very peaceful life that hasn't got many things to worry about.
I'm not saying commercial air travel isn't without its issues, it's generally just kind of annyoying to stand in lines, stand in more lines, then get crammed into a metal tube with my knees smashed against the seat in front me. It's just that the likelihood of some catastrophe (drunk, mental issues, etc.) that isn't self imposed is quite low.
My n=1 anecdote is just that, but I would wager I'm more likely to be hassled or be hit by airline failure given all of my variables AND the sheer number of flights I take compared to the average person. Yet hear am I saying the airlines and TSA aren't really THAT bad. Talk about playing devil's advocate.
Pretty sure this is it. I hail from a third world country, but I have never faced any issues since I'm European, and have since "whitewashed" my passport into a Five Eyes one.
Have even cracked a joke or two with TSA agents & gotten a "Welcome to America, enjoy your holiday" at LAX.
My point is that I'm the exact demographic of people who should be getting hit by "random" searches and I've got the volume of travel where it should be happening to me somewhat frequently if it is a widespread issue that occurs with any regularity. I'm 24-34, 1/2 Arab, have a beard, book a lot of flights on short notice, sometimes just one way, and NEVER check a bag.
I don't get ever get bumped from flights and I get pulled out for "random" searches on average of 1 times per year for the past 5 years.
Again, all anecdotal, but I'm the definition of the guy who should hate the airport. I only just dislike it.
My point is that I'm the exact demographic of people who should be getting hit by "random" searches and I've got the volume of travel where it should be happening to me somewhat frequently if it is a widespread issue that occurs with any regularity. I'm 24-34, 1/2 Arab, have a beard, book a lot of flights on short notice, sometimes just one way, and NEVER check a bag.
I don't ever get bumped from flights and I get pulled out for "random" searches on average of 1 times per year for the past 5 years.
Again, all anecdotal, but I'm the definition of the guy who should hate the airport. I only just dislike it.
I do the pdx to lax route a lot and end up showing up under an hour to the airport most times. Pdx tsa is probably the nicest batch I've run across. Of all my flying I've only had one bad time through tsa anywhere. People just like to play into the joke about how incompetent they are. Now, MCO on the other hand is a complete joke and tsa there all need to be retrained....
>Man, I'm not sure if your home airport is not very good, you don't travel that often, or if you just have a higher base level of anxiety or what- but any drive over 4 hours and I'm on the lookout to see if I can fly there.
I'm not the person you're replying to, but I do have something to say about this.
Your situation is a bit different in that you need to be able to get from Portland to SF and back in a single day. Some people, myself included, don't have that restriction and value the journey as much as we value the destination. Personally, I absolutely LOVE long road trips. Seeing sites, eating at cozy roadside diners, listening to super loud music and sleeping in my car are all things I look forward to.
That's a good point, I do enjoy road trips for the purpose of a road trip. I usually take two or three on my motorcycle every summer. But if I'm just trying to get somewhere (work, family for the holidays, etc.) I'd be happiest if I could just teleport. Until we all have a personal Scotty beaming us around, I guess I'll have to settle for Alaska Airlines.
I love Alaska. Its the least evil of all domestic airlines. I once had a supper shitty experience when Microsoft flew me in for interview with United. Since then I don't even go 100ft near United. Alaska all the way!
I really hope Microsoft doesn't fly their candidates with United anymore. A couple of big companies cancelling their corporate contracts might give them a reality check.
The last time I flew was in 2009 when I had to go to Chattanooga for my wife's funeral (we buried her next to her mom). Before that was 2001 when we got married in the same city and then honeymooned in Baltimore & DC.
I really don't understand this. I've flown 3-4 times a year for the past 10 years and love flying.
At busy airports like JFK and NRT, I show up no more than 90 minutes before boarding time, which gives me time to check my bags and go through security, and still have time to grab a snack. At smaller airports, like MCI, I show up 30 minutes before boarding time and still have time to relax a bit.
I prefer to check bags. It's free on domestic flights for me and a passenger because I have airline-branded credit card, I avoid the pain of trying to find a space for my carry-on, and it just feels nicer to be able to walk through security and to my gate without dragging around a huge suitcase. I've never once had trouble with checked baggage - no valuables stolen, nothing lost.
And what's this about the "ever-increasing cost"?! Flights are cheaper than ever. If you're lucky enough to live near a hub, you can get anywhere in the world for a decent price. At smaller airports, the hubs are just one flight away and might not even cost any more. If they do it's only $100 or so.
A 3 hour flight is more like a 20 hour drive. Take Chicago to Miami for example. I just looked some flights. A nonstop flight is 3 hr 5 min and cost about $200 round trip. You'd spend more than that on gas for just the one way trip if you drove. Not to mention a hotel since you'd probably want to break it up to 2 days driving.
Sometimes its about Flying vs not flying. I definitely have reduced all flying to absolute necessary. Not being white, I get treated differently by TSA at times. Flying is currently a very annoying experience.
And you get at least a fighting chance at experiencing/appreciating the places you pass through. And in a pinch you've got a place to sleep. And no inane announcements to sit through and no inane in-flight movie to avert your eyes from!
I love flying AND driving. I used to regularly do Seattle->SJ by car (did it 4x in 4 weeks one time) and really enjoy the drive.
Flying commercially sucks, of course, but the security line concerns are overblown. They've been saying "3 hours before departure for international, 2 hours for domestic" for decades, but I just ignore it. I routinely show up 30min before boarding for domestic flights (so, 55-60min before departure) and never have an issue. Worst security line I've seen at SFO was 25min. I was sweating it a bit, but I got to my gate exactly at boarding time, and it was a ghost town.. they hadn't even bothered to get the gate agents there yet!
The only thing you have to be careful of is, if checking a bag, to have it checked 45 or 50min before departure, that's the the tricky one.
It's never been easy to get into the US though, long before Trump they've been handing out arbitrary bans or doing nonsense like extraordinary rendition to 3rd world countries not respecting dual citizenship with Canada/Europe. I suspect nothing will happen because I can't remember a time where I didn't dread crossing the border all the way back to the Bush 1.0 presidency.
There's a NAFTA tribunal held once a week at major border crossings with Can/US not many people know about that can overturn the overzealous authority of border guards if anybody receives an arbitrary ban from entry I've had to use it a few times.
As for United Airlines monopolies allow this behavior to happen because where else are you going to go. United holds 73% of slots at Newark for example
My wife and I just got back from a trip to Italy. The flight was full on the way there. We went from Chicago to Rome. However on the way back we flew from Venice with a stop over in Madrid back to Chicago. The plane was only 1/3 full at most. I remember commenting to my wife how empty it was.
> My wife and I just got back from a trip to Italy. The flight was full on the way there. We went from Chicago to Rome. However on the way back we flew from Venice with a stop over in Madrid back to Chicago. The plane was only 1/3 full at most. I remember commenting to my wife how empty it was.
That's most likely just the normal variation in the flight schedules - they can vary dramatically not just by time of year, but also time of day.
For example, I just took a flight from Dubai to NYC (and this was after Trump's Muslim ban came into effect). The flight was packed, with nearly every seat full. Last year, I took the same flight but a few hours later, and it was nearly empty - almost every person in coach had the entire row to themselves (which, for a 15-hour flight, was great!).
Or put another way, if the flight on the way from Chicago to Rome was full and the flight from Madrid to Chicago was not, that doesn't really tell you much about aggregate tourism from other countries to the US, unless you're also making the assumption that there are literally planes full of people emigrating from the US every day.
True. I don't do enough international travel to indicate it one way or another. Just thought it was strange. This is only 1 small data point where many are needed in order to see any trending.
Load factors (both directions) are about as high as they ever have been.
In general terms, you can't really have a direction imbalance - especially due to the reasons you are positing. The vast majority of people flying (either direction) is on a tourist visa. Those people have to return as well as get there, so if a flight is full headed to Europe pretty much the same number of people must return. And vice versa.
Immigration/long-term business stays/etc. are a tiny fraction of the folks on the airplane. I suppose there could be an epidemic of US tourists overstaying their EU visas but I kind of doubt it :)
You'd see a reduction in load factor in both directions if there is a dropoff of EU tourism.
I am constantly surprised when reading about the US. You would think that there would be more similarities with New Zealand, my home country.
Anecdotally; I flew to Australia a few months ago on an economy-class ticket purchased at very short notice. My trip through both Auckland and Melbourne airports was very pleasant, and I had no need to even interact with any of the personnel the whole way through. The flight was full but not overbooked and we arrived early.
Reading the stories about travel to the US is very discouraging and erases any desire I had to visit. I suppose there isn't much of an incentive to improve anything in the US, because the economy doesn't rely on tourism to the same extent we do here.
If it helps, I've flown many dozens of times in past few years, mostly in the US, but also on at least a couple of dozen international flights across four continents. I've never lost my checked baggage (I often check one or two bags), and I've never missed a flight, or even gotten particularly close to it (I do show up 2 hours early to avoid that), and I've never been bumped off a flight for any reason.
In the USA, you do have to accept that they're a lot more picky about liquids, and they do make you take off your shoes, but seriously, just read the signs and you won't be surprised.
Technically, yes, but there's very little actual competition on many routes. Domestically in NZ between the main centres there's Air New Zealand and Jetstar. I doubt I'll ever fly Jetstar as I know too many people who've had Jetstar flights cancelled on them at the last minute. Ten years or so ago it was a different story, with more airlines competing.
The company I work at (in Norway) had planed to take all 70 employees to NYC this summer to celebrate a milestone reached.
We just moved the whole thing to Paris instead as we had issues with all of the above, including employees that have visited "dangerous" countries.
The thing that pushed everyone over was when our former prime minster was harassed[1] at the border for having been to a meeting in Iran. It says in his passport that he was a former prime minster, but apparently none is safe from the US border guards.
It seems that the rules have become a lot stricter recently, and it looks like American citizens might end up feeling the consequences as well. This week a Dutch journalist wrote about being rejected by the ESTA visa waiver application because of a previous visit to Iraq as a journalist. So to travel to the US he gets to pay almost $200 and formally apply for a visa — for accredited journalists this is unheard of. Similarly Dutch with roots in Iraq or Iran are completely banned from the US simply for being born in the 'wrong' place.
This is all within the rights of America as a sovereign state of course, but it does mean that the call to cancel or limit the visa-free travel agreement that currently allows US citizens to visit the EU without a visa is gaining momentum (tit-for-tat politics).
Hey now, inferring that some journalists deserve protection because they may have credentials with a company or govt is both silly, and very dangerous. It creates a situation where you literally strip protection away from most journalists and put them in harms way.
Jake Appelbaum had a sendoff speech where he covered how his fellow journalists were putting him in grave danger when calling him an "Internet Activist" meanwhile he was publishing in the same paper as they were. He also covered how The Guardian left Julian Assange out to hang, allowed known compromised systems to remain in day to day use, and banned fellow journalists at other news orgs from writing about quite a few papers/topics from the Snowden archives.
> Hey now, inferring that some journalists deserve protection because they may have credentials with a company or govt is both silly, and very dangerous.
I'm not sure what you mean by your comment with respect to what I wrote — I'm not inferring anything. The ESTA visa waiver program allowed for some leeway in granting people who visited certain countries (e.g., Iran, Iraq) access in certain cases. This seems to have included politicians and journalists. I expect that the US government did limit this to accredited journalists.
Personally I agree with those critics who point out that the whole ESTA program is effectively a thinly disguised visa program. It is a shame that it exists in the first place.
It's not nearly as bad as that, but when I traveled to Canada recently, and was crossing the border back into the US (as a lifetime citizen), I was asked about why I traveled to Turkey and the U.A.E. in the past two years. It was a bit weird, but I guess I'm not sure how routine it was.
It's sad to see that you've had this experience, but the Prime Minister specifically, that was a policy enforcement for a policy that was put in place with the previous administration. So sadly, it's not as new an issue as people think, it's been an issue for over 6 years.
Do you have a source for this? When did the previous administration put this policy in place? I am skeptical that this was happening under the previous administration.
Apparently he wasn't at the time. News reports I read at the time said he applied for ESTA but was found to be in violation of ESTA terms at the boarder.
Well, I'm very sorry your employees missed out on visiting NYC. As a NYC resident and as someone who has been to Paris many times, Paris is very nice.
But people that come to NYC have a much greater experience. In the past month I met both an Italian who came here for the first time and an Israeli and both of them were so happy to be here.
I think your employer should schedule a trip to NYC for these 70 employees -- they must deserve it!
A recent story in Europe was that travellers entering the US could be forced to reveal social network passwords.
No idea if that is true or not but it was a headline.
But here is a real story. I'm American and "member of the tribe" who has been to Israel many times as shown by the passport stamps, speaks Hebrew and I didn't arrive at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv to a Turkish Air flight to Istanbul 3 hours in advance of the flight. My take-on was packed away and I was strip searched down to my underwear.
I was amused and happy for the security, but some people might be bothered by that.
Unlike the US, Israel and Turkey have been actively targeted by real, no-BS terrorist activity and their security measures are not the security theater that is the TSA, nor are their policies inspired by underlying racism but actual evidence-based security policy.
I'm 100% sure it's unpleasant, but their motives are far more trustworthy than the TSA's.
I would have been subject of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 2008 except that I bought a chocolate bar in a tiny store at the last minute. I picked up the chocolate bar and before I could give the cashier the money, .....
> I'm 100% sure it's unpleasant,...
Well, for me, I am only too happy when there are these kinds of security measures....
Also, the screeners are all former military (even women in Israel are drafted) and have been trained to screen according to emotional response. (emotional prosody).
Amused and happy seems like a misnomer when applied to overwhelmingly invasive, unnecessary procedures. Have they actually convinced you that this is improving security?
Well, I don't believe the procedures to be unnecessary. Also, I am not a citizen of Israel but rather a guest, so anything to protect the citizens and other guests from terrorism.
In my opinion, if US airport security was run according to Israeli standards, 9/11 would have been less likely.
Well, Israel had done it for quite some time thanks to terrorists hijacking their planes. Plane hijackings have been going on for other countries for some time.
Also, IIRC, El-Al has an air martial (again former military in every case) on each flight.
If US airport security was run according to Israeli standards, all international flights would have to go through one of two airports, on the east and west coasts, each of which would have to be larger than ORD, JFK, LAX, DFW, and ATL combined. The special school required to train the screeners would effectively be the largest college in the world.
International tourism both in and out would shrink dramatically, as there are precious few religions that consider anywhere in the US to be special holy sites, and plenty of places to see in the US that don't require intensive security screening. No one I know would ever be amused by a strip search.
The Israeli air travel strategy just doesn't scale up quite that well.
Well, I respectfully disagree with your assessment.
First, I don't understand the two airport thing.
Second, the Israelis do a security check on people before they board the (El-Al) planes -- like a day in advance or more.
Also, we have plenty of veterans who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. who have real combat experience that we could pay more money for at TSA and train and staff appropriately. We could have air martials on every flight.
> "No one I know would ever be amused by a strip search."
Well, it was my own fault and a new experience and the agent/military guy was well trained and respectful. I was only too happy that they security was so through.
Israeli security is very professional and I don't feel nearly the same way with TSA in the US.
What percentage of international passenger flights to or from Israel do not go through Ben Gurion? Part of the Israeli security strategy is to route most potential threats through the same focused security apparatus. On a land border, that means building a wall (or "security fence") and moving the travelers through fewer gates. On a sea border, that means watching the whole thing closely and only allowing traffic through a few authorized harbor ports. For the air border, it means routing most travelers through one airport (viz. Ben Gurion).
The US couldn't route everyone through one airport. It's too big. So put one on each coast. That was just a pinch of hyperbole. The US could not practically do that. But neither could it install Ben Gurion levels of security in all of its international airports, because even with all the combat vets, there are too few Americans would would have the capability, competence, composure, and willingness to take the job. And for those who would, the cost of training would be enormous. Just one airport, like O'Hare, which served 78 million passengers last year, had more than 4 times the volume of Ben Gurion's 18 million. And you would have to increase security for every single international airport, or it wouldn't work.
Americans have a different mindset than Israelis. The nation was born from resistance to arbitrary and capricious colonial restrictions, and has never been surrounded by enemies on all sides. Our history has led many of us to deeply distrust our own corrupt governments and police. Here, "security guard" is a low-prestige job for losers, as embodied in the "mall cop" archetype. You might be able to install increased security in Boston or NYC, where recent history instills a greater sense of insecurity, but it is only a short drive away from the state whose motto is "live free or die", home to libertarian festivals where an amalgamation of activist goals is to one day openly carry firearms, while openly vaporizing marijuana, jaywalking topless to request public records, while recording police in the act of not hassling anyone.
The last time I traveled for work (to New Hampshire, actually) I got to witness the American airport security procedure for checking a firearm. My co-worker apparently never went anywhere without it. And that's a typical American thing. An incredibly large number of us are almost constantly armed. Legally. You can't stop someone 3 miles out from the airport at a checkpoint and say the car can't proceed with a weapon in it. The NRA would take that all the way to the Supreme Court and win.
Even the ineffectual security theater they put on in airports now induces hordes of Americans to prefer ground transport, rather than put up with it. And not only are Americans obsessed with their own freedom, but we are also a nation of bargain hunters. This is the country that gave Wal-Mart to the world, and exported many of its own manufacturing jobs to other countries. If we had to pay more for air travel just to get expensive real security instead of cheap placebo, the airlines would simply go bankrupt [more often than they already do].
So if you try to say "arrive 3 hours before departure or strip search" in most US airports, you will have a lot of empty terminals. For one, adding 3 hours to a flight between, for instance, Los Angeles and San Francisco is making that 3 hours in an airport plus an hour in the air plus another 30 minutes for luggage and ground transport versus just getting onto I-5 and driving for 6 hours. From Chicago to Louisville, to name a flight recently in the news, that would be a 5 hour drive compared to 4.5 hours between airports. Hell, last time I flew on my own dime, I drove two hours, to reach another airport with cheaper fares. The local airport actually runs ads on television, begging people not to do that.
Thank you for your detailed and reasoned response. But again, I respectfully disagree with your assessment.
First, you are speaking in terms of numerators but not denominators. Sure, we have 78 million people going through O'Hare of Chicago vs. 18 million for Ben Gurion. But the US has far more people and far more wealth than Israel as well as very large number of seasoned combat veterans.
Many Israelis carry firearms including those that live outside the green line. Those armed Israelis have stopped terrorists. In the case of a Yeshiva in Jerusalem a few years ago a terrorist killed 8 students but was stopped by another student who had a firearm (of course, former military). I know of another person who shot a terrorist who was shooting a machine gun at a bus. He was a hero but Israel doesn't publicize it because it makes him a target.
It may not be as perfect to have US International airports have the same level of security as Israel, but it could be much better than it is today. I'm not certain why Israel has the 3 hour rule.
As it is, for flights, airlines ask that you come to the airport two hours in advance, and in particular that is true for international flights.
Airports should receive more funding for security to 1) speed up the process and 2) use formal military combat vets properly trained. I suspect a small increase in the flight ticket tax to use for airport security would make the difference.
> "the airlines would simply go bankrupt [more often than they already do]."
They often go bankrupt partially because air travel for most is a commodity and it is hard to make profits with a commodity with many substitutions. Of course, consolidation such as United buying out Continental a few years ago makes airlines a bit less of a commodity because of fewer alternatives for flight.
As far as I can tell, that's something the Trump admin has suggested would be a good idea, but isn't policy yet. However, they do conduct other electronic searches.
Then we get to debate what is constitutes as a social media acct? Any forum, any public comment board? Or what is more traditionally called social media, Reddit/Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat/Twitter and the like? Is email social media?
It's an impossible to comply with demand, that gives the person evaluating entirety to claim compliance or non-compliance based on whim. Not a far cry from a poll test.
> But people that come to NYC have a much greater experience.
That's quite a statement. I certainly enjoyed my NYC trip a couple of years ago, but there are many european cities that I rather (re)visit before going back to the US. This is not only because of the current administration (though that doesn't help). People have different preferences.
Its a negative to me because it highlights the consumerist attitude that seems to be prevalent in many parts of the US. The places that I personally felt where most culturally vibrant and interesting were typically the ones that are the least consumerist.
But thats just me! Everyone has their own preferences.
A 24/365 Apple Store is a signal about how cool and new technologically vibrant NYC is ...we need it and use it 24/365. Repairs as well as purchases 24/365.
Number of Apple Stores in Manhattan = 7 (incl. one 24/365)
Number of Apple Stores in NYC 5 Boroughs = 10
Number of stores Paris (incl. La Defense) = 4
Number of stores London = 5
Number of stores Berlin = 1
Jazz/Blues/all kinds of music, a city open 24/7 full of creative vibrancy. 40% of New Yorkers not born in USA. We don't do BrExit here forcing (legal) residents out.
NYC has a 24 hour subway system which costs about $120 / month for unlimited rides. London and Paris shut down their subways at 12:30 AM. Thus, NYC is more committed to green, not forcing people to use gas guzzlers at night.
My understanding of BrExit is that Britain is asking people who have lived there for years to leave.
It is not all Muslim Visa holders, but from 7 countries that were determined by the Obama Administration to be a security risk to the US because they don't do adequate screening at their airports. For example, Turks can come to the US as can Muslims from Israel or anywhere else except those 7 countries.
The Visa issue is regrettable, but it is only temporary and the people will eventually be able to return. Those in the US can remain here and not asked to leave as in the case of BrExit.
Have you been to any Asian cities in the last two decades?
NYC has its perks, but the subway systems of Tokyo, Shanghai, and Seoul make the MTA look pretty shabby.
These cities are also 24/7, to a greater extent than any Western city, I would argue.
OMG! you really like your Apple stores don't you? Apple stores say nothing about the vibrancy of the city. It basically states that the city mindlessly practices American consumerism that Apple needs 24/365 stores to keep up with demand.
My experience of New York was tall buildings, narrow streets with garbage on the sidewalks, ridiculously expensive rents, homelessness on streets, lots of people walking around but very few actually willing to have a conversation. I enjoyed the street food and it was a great experience but I would chose a number of places around the world over New York for a company trip.
> "OMG! you really like your Apple stores don't you?"
Well, with a 24/365 store I sleep easier at night knowing that if I need another unit or in person assistance when on a tight deadline I can get one. :-)
Also, Apple products, Macs, iPhones, iPads, are the tools of choice for the creative industries (media, photo, fashion, software development, much engineering, ....) and so number of stores and a 24/365 store is an index of creativity and vibrancy.
A couple of years ago at the 24/365 store I was told by an Apple Genius Bar person that the sales volume of that store alone is nearly that of the Macy's on 34th which takes an entire city block and that Macy's is the largest store in America.
> "My experience of New York was tall buildings, narrow streets..."
Well, I guess it depends on one's frame of reference. For me, NYC has an energy of its people -- 40% were not even born in the US and have come to make their way in NYC/America. I am always meeting new nice people in coffee shops who are living in NYC and from all over the world. The UN Building is in NYC, but NYC is the UN in itself.
Did you check out the blues/jazz throughout the city but especially in Greenwich Village? The large assortment of museums? The delis with corned beef and pastrami?, other sorts of ethnic foods?
Perhaps if when you return to NYC you meet up with someone who knows the city and you'll feel better.
Sounds like you like NYC a lot because it does many things the way they do it in NYC, way more than any other place that is NYC.
Which is a bit circular if you're trying to convince anyone else, but as a personal opinion that works fine (I'm serious, you like this sort of thing, good for you. Not so good for the homeless, which you just rather blatantly ignored--ouch--but hey there's probably worse places in the world so ehm yeah! good for you!).
Apple is not nearly as popular in Europe as it is in the US. Software development and engineering, definitely not. Graphics design, sure, but I feel that'll change soon. Sound design / music producing, I'd say about 50/50, but they'll just use both a Windows machine and a Mac in their studio because they like to have the best tools (and VSTs) of both.
> Well, with a 24/365 store I sleep easier at night knowing that if I need another unit or in person assistance when on a tight deadline I can get one. :-)
Not having tight deadlines at night so frequently that I'd need a 24/7 store is what'd make me sleep easier, personally.
Not attempting to convince, because no convincing necessary. I'd say most open source software development and all iOS development is done on Macs which now leads Linux for that use.
Of course, if Microsoft keeps improving the Linux WSL (newest Win10 Creators update adds a lot -- still more to go) it will be a very viable competitor.
Europe is very beautiful, but all of the energy is in the US. This morning I met a couple of Danish women visiting NYC and they love the energy of NYC and the idea of working in a startup / Silicon Valley type environment.
For certain, NYC is not for everyone, but for many, myself included (and those Danish women) NYC just feels so energetic and interesting.
As for deadlines it is the nature of much work...some failures happen at night or holidays when stores are generally closed.
NYC's vibrancy is largely a product of its environment, not proof of a better city. In the US, but for a few cities that mostly defeated planners'attempts to suburbanize them (NYC included), all our towns and cities are largely shit. The better ones have a couple of blocks of places worth being, but those are mostly choked in webs of car-dominated hellscape. If you want to go to a place that's decent, for most people, you have to drive. So why not drive into NYC and make a weekend of it? This NYC is very crowded because it's a shining beacon in a pile of disasters.
By comparison, every place you can reach within an hour or two of Paris probably is a place worth being. (This was my experience in Madrid, and I'm extrapolating here for Paris.) That's a lot less pressure forcing people into the city center, because people can enjoy themselves much closer to where they live.
You take 24 hour Apple stores as a sign of vibrancy. I'd sooner look at the density of independent bakeries.
As to your subway comment, your conclusion is absurd. It seems likely to me that the savings from having fewer redundant tracks (which would be needed to facilitate maintenance in a 24 hour system) would more than offset the small demand for middle-of-the-night trips that can't wait until the next morning.
In all fairness, if you'd close your subways for part of the night, how will you keep your schizophrenic people out of sight? (sorry I mean, homeless, yes that's the root of their issues, obviously, the mumbling, drooling, rocking back and forth, all side-effects of homelessness clearly)
Ah, such memories of my visit to that vibrant city ...
NYC was easily the worst part about visiting the Greater New England area, but to each their own. I mean sure it's interesting to see that world-famous city and spend a week in it. But that first breath of fresh air in a week, as we stepped out of the train in Beacon, that was really nice too (not the only thing I didn't like about NYC, compared to the surrounding area, actually I only noticed it as I stepped out, after a week).
Good to see that former politicians are also being treated as badly as the rest of us. The sooner they all start realizing they aren't going to get special treatment the sooner they'll start actually representing everyone.
US border guards don't even know what a prime minister is. There's no way they know about diplomatic passports. They have no idea about the laws they are supposed to enforce. They think they're supposed to enforce laws that don't exist. They are stupid idiots who exert their power randomly and wrongly. That's been my experience. Expecting anything else is unrealistic. What else do you expect from someone who probably barely graduated high school in the US? If these people were qualified to work at McDonalds, I assume they would.
Are you confusing Customs with the TSA? In general, customs agents are much better trained and there is a lot of former military. TSA on the other hand is as you a low requirement job as you described.
No. I'm talking about the border guards who check passports when flying back into the country. The one I talked to did not understand the concept of dual citizenship and insisted that I get rid of my non-US passport as soon as I entered because it is illegal. This is after failing to find my stamp in my US passport that had all of three stamps in it and trying to claim that I didn't have one! Talk about stupid! This borders on retardation! I assume this is the norm and the other concepts I mentioned are also beyond their meager understanding simply because this guy was so stupid that if he made it through the hiring process, plenty of other idiots have too. Hell, compared to this, the TSA employees are courteous and generally at least do their job properly.
> Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now.
As someone not living in the US, travelling to the US is not looking good either. I know of many, many people who have written off visiting the USA for the foreseeable future.
I'm one of those and I've spent many years in the US in the past (lived in NE and VA for 5 years in total and visited over 30 states). Sadly, as much as I enjoy visiting the States, it simply feels like too much of a liability to visit at the moment. I'll reconsider in 4 years if it hasn't got any worse.
I travel a lot internationally but won't visit the USA - I have no interest in putting myself through that.
By contrast, I've travelled to a lot of countries that the USA considers dangerous or extreme (e.g. Sudan), and have had nothing but pleasant and easy experiences.
> I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point.
According to some, it already has:
"All this has resulted in an estimated loss of $185 million in business travel bookings from January 28 to February 4, as calculated by the Global Business Travel Association. The drop-off in tourism is predicted to result in 4.3 million fewer visitors this year, which adds up to a staggering loss of $7.4 billion in revenue for the US."
United have always stunk. I'm thinking back about two decades on what was practically my first long-haul international trip. The return leg BOS-AMS on UAL was delayed due to equipment, then cancelled, then the replacement also delayed & cancelled, and so on, always with limited information and brusque, disinterested customer service. No apology, no compensation, and rerouting requests consistently denied. This continued for three days, and after three days of wandering the dreary halls of Boston Logan Airport my fellow detainees were on first-name terms.
Being a wet-behind-the-ears youth I had little idea of how abnormal this was, or how to properly and successfully complain to a gigantic company, and was also secretly enjoying my extra time in the US exploring the hidden places in and around an airport.
But some of the other passengers were frantic. Three days stuck at '90s-era Logan, because United couldn't get their act together and compounded their engineering & operational failures with dismally bad customer service. Some of them were missing major life events as a result.
Twentyish years on I have Legendary frequent flyer status, and exactly no dollars whatsoever were spent towards it with United. I choose to spend extra on friends and family routing with other airlines simply that they may avoid UAL. "Never again". Vote with your wallet.
Imagine when they start asking for your passwords. Many of my colleagues said they really won't go anymore if that happens. It won't be long before conferences in the US will see diminished attendance from other parts of the world. In my field (biophysics) I'm pretty sure more local conferences are going to much more preferred in the future.
At Boston Logan airport me and some colleagues (+ the rest of the people on the plane waiting at customs) were once barked at: "The next person who forgot to fill out the back of his green form will be sent back to his home country!" No smiles, just a death stare while you put in your finger prints...
It's a shame, it's such a beautiful country but I could do without.
Aren't they doing it already? I was under impression from news you must already provide them at border with password or unlock your device for inspection when asked.
> I wonder if this is a first step of a large trend yet to develop.
I sure hope not. Isolation only fuels nationalism. Nationalism fuels irrational decisions. Irrational decisions lead to fascism.
If you want your people to dehumanize a culture, the first step is to isolate your people from that culture. Don't allow your people any opportunity to empathize with that culture. If you continue to isolate your people, you can breed an "us vs them" sentiment. This is perfect if you want to start a war with popular support.
This is a direct consequence of charging for checked bags.
Now every flight takes twice as long to board and disembark because everyone is carrying as much carry on as they can and trying to stuff them into the overhead bins.
Annoyingly, they usually start making announcements about gate-checking bags for free so they are not really reducing the costs and they're encouraging passengers to drag their bags through security (slowing down that line) in the hope they can gate check the bag for free (or not at all) in order to save $100/bag.
The airlines should offer free bag check and charge $100/bag per carry-on in the overhead bins (under the seat is free still).
I would happily go for check bag in for free, but sometimes Airlines take forever to get the bag on to the carousel. Its much faster to get in and out with your bag as a carry-on.
I agree, One free bag check should be compulsory. They should also ensure that your bags arrive faster than you at the baggage carousel. May be one day with the advent of robots.
Its much faster to get in and out with your bag as a carry-on.
This is the reason I do carry-on only if I can get away with it. I want to keep my airport-time as low as reasonably possible. I also try to optimise my seating for this purpose rhen its something I can do (without paying for priority stuff). For example, on a recent flight, I was the 3rd person through the passport checks and the first person (as far as I could tell) leaving the secure area.
We just hired an Indian national at the startup I work for. He's on an h1b visa after finishing his masters in CS. Everyone at the company has to be registered with Homeland security. I'm so pissed. I think maybe we've convinced the CEO to just not and see what happens.
I'm appalled by how this frontal assault on human dignity is shielded by law. What many of us learned this week is that it seems to be perfectly legal to bump off poorer or less privileged people specifically from a plane.
This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.
The first question is whether you can have rent-a-cops throw a passenger off a plane after they have taken their seat. As I understand it, that is not legal.
The second question is about over-booking more broadly. After all, though there's a legal distinction between a passenger a second before boarding and a second after, from a customer service standpoint they're still denied the seat they were promised. Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be?
Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be?
I assume there are weasel words in the contract(airline ToS) to allow this.
In that case, a missed flight should result in the passenger having to buy a brand new ticket. That doesn't happen: a missed flight is generally put on the next flight free or at a very nominal fee.
Imagine the outrage if someone missed their flight by 10 minutes and they had to buy an entirely new ticket. If airlines did that, they wouldn't need to overbook though. Alternatively, instead of overbooking, the airline just doubles ticket prices.
There are full fare tickets that can be cancelled/refunded, or changed to other flights, at any time. So there's always some amount of no-shows. So they don't really "know" that they cannot honor the oversells. There's also equipment swaps to smaller aircraft, flights cancelled for mechanical issues that then moves passengers to other planes, etc.
The other approach would be to never overbook, but if you're the only airline not overbooking, your margins will be lower. Empty seats don't make money.
Overboooking probably accounts for most of these incidents, but in this particular case they had to switch to a slightly smaller plane due to mechanical issues. So eliminating overbooking won't fix this problem completely.
However, having a policy of not forcing passengers to relinquish seats they've already sat down in would...
I'm basically against overbooking, but playing devil's advocate: is it that hugely different from fractional reserve banking? They claim you can get your money out at any time, but that's not the case if everyone tries at once.
They weren't rent-a-cops, they were/are state employees, and of course they can remove people from planes if those people are trespassing, what makes you think they couldn't?
I'm getting tired of people claiming that United can't break their own contracts legally. Of course they can, and no it's not "illegal". Why is that the bar everyone look to for whether or not they should be doing something?
If you believe what United did in this case or the case of the doctor being dragged out is illegal, please continue to pay close attention to what happens in the latter case, as I'm sure it will continue to be reported on for at least the foreseeable future.
Specifically, notice the distinct lack of criminal charges.
They bumped a rich guy in this instance. I'm not sure how this can amount to a "frontal assault on human dignity" by asking a dude to relinquish his seat when there's a conflict. They had too many people in first class and they gave priority to the seat not on who had already entered the plane but to the higher member in their club? Easy to disagree or think you would have done it the other way but this isn't really an assault on human dignity. And the great thing, they didn't consider net worth or anything like that. They treated their valued customer in their program by rewarding him with his or her seat at the expense of someone who wasn't enrolled in their program.
> This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.
> This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.
Contrary to James Cameron's abominable film, boat allocation on the Titanic was quite fair. One's odds of survival were better in First Class, but this was likely due to First Class passengers being closer to the life boats. Notably, women & children had a markedly better chance of surviving than men, despite not being notably 'privileged' in early 20th century society.
>Instead, the service rep offered to refund Fearns the difference between his first-class ticket and an economy ticket
So he paid the cost of first class but flied economy and when they get called out on it they think all they need to do is compensate for the difference? With the way he was treated?!
How can you call yourself "Customer care specialist" and think that is a way to treat customers?
Not only that, if you're downgraded and the policy is to refund the difference then you as a customer shouldn't have to ask for a refund, it should just happen. As a business, you literally could not get away with this kind of behaviour in Europe.
He contacted the CEO and got the CCS instead, so I imagine what happened was the CEO handed this off to Customer Care and said give them the difference in price and be done with it.
So, let's just say for a moment that this applied to 100 flights per day, and meant that United foregoes $1,000 in revenue per seat that they don't sell. They would be giving up $100,000 per day, or $1 million every 10 days, or roughly $35 million per year, by leaving a first-class seat empty on every flight. Weighing that against the risk of pissing off one or two first-class passengers a month for those times when everyone shows up for their flight and a VIP suddenly wants to claim a seat, just doesn't make good business sense.
I didn't say it did. They have to tell their top paying customer "no" or charge enough to make this possible. Humanity/morality should come in to the equation at some point too.
An alternative of course is to run an auction to be bought out of the seat, but they can't absolutely guarantee a seat that way. If they want to guarantee a seat, they must keep one; nothing else is a guarantee of a seat, only a promise to try and give one.
Surely they have metrics on how often a particular flight needs a seat for one of these "special people". On those flights, leave a seat. If nobody shows, then right at the end of boarding, allow another passenger to have that seat.
I wonder how many millions all this is going to end up costing United in the end.
It's United's secret top tier frequent flyer program. They get their ass kissed for literally everything, even above full-fare revenue passengers. There's no published requirements for it or information about it - here's the closest thing: https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser...
Fun anecdote: a few months ago I booked a Star Alliance ticket and had a United segment ORD-EWR. I was the only (!) non-upgraded revenue first class passenger on the flight according to the gate agent, but boarded the plane 33rd, thanks to "Global Services" passengers (including the ones in coach) getting to board before me. They also got to order food first, so I was left with the leftover food item, and also got their drink orders and other attention lavished on them first, despite the fact that all the other Global Services passengers in F were flying on free upgrades to F instead of paying for it.
Note that "they got to order first" meant that they literally just skipped over me when taking food/drink orders and when I asked what they were doing the FA brusquely said "We'll get to you in a moment SIR!"
"The biggest benefit to Global Services is the excellent service that is given to those with the status. They receive what can only be described as the royal treatment. Below, some examples:[...]
Irritated with a flight attendant or gate agent? Complain about it and he/she will be reprimanded by HR."
So if you are a GS passenger you can literally get people reprimanded by their own HR? Fab.
$1,000 does not sound like true full fare first (I.e. F class http://www.cwsi.net/m/united.htm), but my real guess is they had a global services customer they needed to get on the plane and this had paid less or had lower Frequent flyer status than the rest of the cabin
While this might or might not be technically legal, what shocks me is the response you'll see on online fora, that passengers should just shut up and comply, and that failure to do so is childish.
These posts are often at great length, and laden with appeals to authority. Some might be trolls. But others appear to be by people who genuinely value an environment where the lowliest airline employee, no matter how poor their judgement, no matter how absent their discretion, is more right than any customer. Munoz's email to employees, of which I've not seen a retraction, takes this line wholeheartedly. It's a trait that suffuses the industry. Who the hell ARE these people?
FWIW this attitude is the one taught by primary school teachers in the UK "do what the teacher tells you straight away without question" and it's evil. I can see how such an attitude gets then reinforced and survives in adults, "that's what 'good' pupils do".
This is taught so that small kids don't carry on doing things that might be dangerous (kids don't know the difference between dangerous and annoying, so a blanket rule is more sensible here). It's not evil, it's damn sensible. Please feel free to critisise the continuation of this teaching to older kids who can think critically about what they're doing, but don't ask for primary school kids to not do what the accountable adult is telling them.
No, demanding doing things without question is truly an insidious evil. Even a 5 year old has faculty enough to question some blanket commands.
T: "everyone sit down now, please"
P: "my chair has wet paint on it Sir, do I have to sit down too?"
Should the teacher say "always do as I say first time" next or should they acknowledge they were operating on imperfect knowledge of the situation and modify the command? This is only slightly contrived, some pupils will sit in the paint through fear of the teacher (some, occasionally, through over-bearing desire to please the teacher).
Always allowing a command to be questioned develops critical thinking and encourages creativity whilst demanding pupils use good communications. It's harder to handle with a group, for sure, but worth it IMO.
Questioning a command in order to get a reason for complying does not equate to "not doing what an accountable adult says". "Because I say so" should be the last fallback, not the first and only reason available.
It requires humility. Being corrected by a 7yo, say, in front of a group can feel humiliating; but it's more important to do what is right than it is to instill a misplaced sense of obedience as being the highest virtue.
This allows for the fallibility of the accountable adult and respects - and develops - the faculty of the child(ren).
Americans. Seriously, authoritarianism is so deeply ingrained in American culture (right now?) that for any abuse of authority, no matter how petty, most people will argue that the problem is not the authority figure, but the person who decided not to comply with authority. I don't know exactly how this happened. But it's not just the airline industry.
In many areas of life I've found that culturally we have been trained to view anyone who sticks out as being childish regardless of the merit of their grievances. For example, if someone lies to me and signs me up for a contract I did not agree to (such as adding on extras that I didn't agree) and I react negatively, I'm seen as childish and they are seen as doing their job, even though they committed fraud. Demanding to see a contract and read it before I sign it is seen as being a disruption (because they lose business for an hour while I read the contract). I once refused to sign a statement saying a work order had been fulfilled because of wording saying that signing the work order as having been done counted as signing some other documents. I was viewed as the bad guy in the social situation because the serviceman would not be paid for the work (since I didn't sign the work order) even though it was their company who made it so that signing for the work order being complete also signed other legal documents I didn't want to agree to. I looked the part of the asshole, not the company.
The tin foil hat wearer in me wonders if our society has been pushed in this direction on purpose as it benefits faceless corporations.
Browsing that on firefox on mobile was terrible, about part way down the page a fullscreen video overlay appears that I couldn't work out how to close.
So, this is a guy who apparently wasn't VIP enough:
> Fearns, 59, is president of TriPacific Capital Advisors, an Irvine investment firm that handles more than half a billion dollars in real estate holdings on behalf of public pension funds.
"What United and all companies need to do is to train and empower workers to deal with specific issues as they arise,” she said. “Don’t just follow whatever is written in your policies."
Unfortunately that's so often the case - one may as well be conversing with a robot in many customer service situations. I can only imagine it's just as frustrating for the disempowered service reps.
Empowering local service reps often leads to worse things. The cases where a Muslim passenger or whatever was forced to leave because another passenger complained wasn't written into any policy, it was the result of local crew exercising their discretion.
At the moment I wish United gets beaten up well for forced passenger removal earlier this week. However, IMO this article just tries to pile onto the "United stinks" meme and is poorly written (more emotions than facts). Some things missing (for me):
1. When did this happen? The article makes it look like this just happened, but does not mention a date. I suspect the omission is on purpose (if so, boo!; if not, sorry, but please add event date).
2. The fact that the guy bumped off is rich is irrelevant (and going on and on about it dulls the message).
3. The fact that the seat the guy was downgraded was noisy (people arguing on both sides) is irrelevant.
IMO the main point is valid -- the person was first to the seat and in general whoever gets into the seat first keeps it in case of a seat collision or a duplicate ticket. He should not have been asked to free it to another passenger (who should have been downgraded instead and compensated somehow). But conflating this with unrelated issue to get on a "United stinks" meme is a cheap trick. My 2c.
The information is missing from the story, but is available on other write ups of the same story.
It happened on April 1st. He was offered the difference in price between the first class seat and the economy seat. That seems like poor compensation since this is basically a form of denied boarding, which involves higher compensation. Perhaps technically, since he still had a seat, it's not denied boarding, but it's certainly worth more than the fare difference.
The relevant part is that the United staff specifically said he would be put in handcuffs if he didn't comply. That's the part to me that makes this fair game to bootstrap some attention from the other incident.
Any verification that handcuffs were threatened? A guy saying it's so while also claiming he's considering a lawsuit doesn't lend much credibility -- he has a financial incentive to hyperbolize.
There's not proof, but in his letter to United he asked only for a full refund. He did ask them to donate $25k to the charity of his choice, which seems an odd request if your goal is extortion.
"IMO the main point is valid -- the person was first to the seat and in general whoever gets into the seat first keeps it in case of a seat collision or a duplicate ticket."
I would be extremely annoyed if I were in the same situation as this flyer.
However, I'm not really sure what United is supposed to do here ... according to the article they had a mechanical problem with the original plane and the replacement plane had fewer first class seats ...
So somebody has to not fly in the first class seat.
Again, I would be very, very upset - but as an outsider looking in, it seems a bit childish and primitive to assume that whoever raced to the seat first gets to keep it, regardless of any other factors.
Again, United has to downgrade somebody to coach in this situation - it seems reasonable that they sort that downgrade to the lowest "status" passenger.
Oh come on, it's not a race to the seats. This should've been handled at the gate before boarding. United knew it didn't have enough seats, when the plane changed, they should have made seating adjustments then.
Again, I would be very, very upset - but as an outsider looking in, it seems a bit childish and primitive to assume that whoever raced to the seat first gets to keep it, regardless of any other factors.
It isn't like a city bus where you can elbow your way to the front of the line and grab a seat. There's an assigned seating process that's 100% controlled by the airline. If they screw it up, that's on their heads.
It is an entirely reasonable expectation that once you've been issued a boarding pass, board the plane, put your bag up, belt in, and get a drink that you are sitting in that seat. There's nothing childish or primitive about having that expectation.
Duplicate / messed up tickets happen and IME (I travel roughly once a month and saw this maybe 3-4 times) the "first in" is always how things are resolved. Whoever is first keeps his seat, whoever is late is reseated, gets an apology and some goodies especially if this is a downgrade / later flight. I think (but not 100% sure) this might even be codified in some airlines policies.
I saw duplicate assigned seats, I saw seats assigned in the toilet -- the plane had last row of ABC seats and lavatory where DEF seats would be. Sure enough two people show up with tickets in the DEF section. After some (weary) chuckles the folks just got squeezed into any open seats.
What is messed up about this case though was the lack of clear policy (so the person does not feel he is discriminated against), threats instead of apology and no compensation.
I am also surprised at the price: $1000 for a first class ticket on a long flight is low. Was that be one of the "gate upgrades" he purchased instead of the real first class ticket? This does not absolve United at all, but at least gives some potential sanity to their choice of a purchased seat over a gate upgrade.
Jeff Bezos' annual letter, released yesterday, had a good line (one of many) that immediately made me think of this United situations and broadly the crazy rules we've created for air travel and the culture that surrounds it all:
"It’s always worth asking, do we own the process or does the process own us? In a Day 2 company, you might find it’s the second."
By the way, in the case of Dr Dao it was also not overbooking that caused him to get bumped off, but airline's assignment of lower priority to him than someone else. Just like in the parent article.
There were other misreportings as well, not to mention that some news outlets ran character assassination stories and almost nobody emphasised that Dr Dao was a senior.
I wonder if this is a staged attempt (on the part of United, if not also the passenger) to prove that the prior instance was not about race or class (e.g. economy vs. first). "See, we do it to everyone!" Could this latest behavior be used as defensive evidence in a court case alleging discrimination?
Nah. Apparently this is a previous incident that was ignored because no one had a viral video with a blooding client. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by a HUGE amount of stupidity.
I don't develop games... But if I did I would create a game called "United flight agent". You would be standing in the aisle facing the rear of the plane. Each round you would have a goal number of passengers to forcibly remove.
You would walk up and down the aisle and punch out selected passengers. Once you had suitably subdued a passenger you click a security badge and the "Airport Rental Security" guys come and drag the passenger off.
The game timer would be a chart of United's share price. The round is over when the price hits zero.
The price could rise and fall with certain events:. A passenger stumbling back on the plane for instance.
The game would end immediately if you punched a baby - even United agents don't punch babies!
People usually like to interact with other people for that "human touch", and even quote it as a reason why they won't lose their job to automation.
I think I would rather interact with a robot than with a crew that has procedures so rigid (and dumb) that they are not allowed to have empathy.
I think that's sadly representative of the corporate mindset brought to the extreme. The consumer is not king anymore, it's a product.
When did this start? I wonder.
463 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 341 ms ] thread> He had to fly to Hawaii last week
The customer even paid premium price to be in first class and instead of being notified at the gate, like any respectable airline would do, he's asked to give his seat to somebody "more important" than him when already seated.
It doesn't make any sense, if that "more important person" came later, he should be the one getting compensated by the airline especially when the problem occurred because United needed to change the plane for a smaller one.
You don't kick customer, you compensate them.
This was all on Asian airlines. My few experiences on United have been terrible.
So in this case I'd say the regulations guiding airlines is fair. United's execution of these regulations is the problem. There are a million things United could have done in the chain of events to have avoided facing a PR backlash. As this is HN, I'd give a simple technical solution that would have avoided this whole problem:
The computer could have deboarded 8 passangers at random from order of lowest priority. United could have explained that if their employees don't catch this flight another flight with XXX passengers will be delayed / cancelled. This would allow the supervisor to use their own discretion to allow 4 of the 8 passengers to reboard.
Making the practice of "overselling" illegal is not the solution. There are times where problem could be cause by equipment swaps changing seat numbers. If we stop the airlines from overselling then travelling will become a lot more expensive.
Come'on this is hacker news. I am sure most here have seen the mainframe based applications that entirely control every aspect of airline industry.
These things were coded by professionals over 30 years ago. Its not like these flights are being managed by some buggy wordpress plugin made by some offshore developer.
[0] http://www.cwsi.net/united.htm
Your solution just has the airline crew going, "Fair enough, sir, you can stay" and then calling the next name. At that point, the next person knows that refusing is allowed, so he does too. Pretty quickly, you're absolutely going to be on a flight where five of the eight refuse, and now you're back to bludgeoning elderly asian people. And at some point, the whole system becomes public knowledge, and you now add the element of fights between passengers because we all know that only four of us get to refuse.
Or you just eject all eight of them and four can later reboard. Again, what if one or more refuse.
There is a solution in place already. United just didn't choose to employ it. United offered vouchers to anyone who wanted to voluntarily give up their seats. They reportedly bumped the offer one time. They didn't bump it enough. There's your solution. I promise you everyone on that plane had a price. You can find four people who'll take say $2000 to miss a flight to fucking Louisville. Does United think $2000 is too much? I guess so, but at that point, United has a problem that can be solved by effectively buying back some seats, and sellers get to set the price they'll take. It would have been a hell of a lot cheaper to have paid them.
You inform the refusenik that he is trespassing; if he continues to refuse to leave, you inform him that police will be waiting for him at his destination, then call out the fifth name on the list. When you arrive at the destination, he goes to jail, while the four bumped passengers get vouchers and fly later.
Given how cheap flying is by historical standards, I wouldn't mind that.
Based on http://www.askthepilot.com/how-to-speak-airline/ it seems like "boarding" means to enter the plane.
> One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat.
> It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.
"Sir please deplane we need your seat"
"No- I haven't done anything illegal and am in my seat already"
"Looks like he's not following crew instructions! Get em' boys!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VES_srfHmQE
Again I'll offer the example of Germany: cops are basically all armed, but they're very slow to pull out their gun. Even if you run at them with a knife, they'll aim for your legs. Saves a lot of lives, with just training and culture.
Looks like the officer, Sgt. Brian Stansbury, got off with nothing:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160313/12001133892/compl...
https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1411-i...
There's a lot of room in between a contractual dispute and interference.
It applies only in the "Special Aircraft Jurisdiction of the United States":
"An individual on an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States who, by assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft, interferes with the performance of the duties of the member or attendant..." [1]
An aircraft is in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States only while the aircraft is "in flight." [2]
"An aircraft is "in flight" from the moment when all external doors are closed following embarkation until the moment when one such door is opened for disembarkation, or in the case of a forced landing, until competent authorities take responsibility for the aircraft"
IANAL, but it would seem difficult to charge anyone with "interfering with a flight crew" if the door hasn't been shut. The language doesn't seem ambiguous.
[1] https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title49/html/USCOD... (scroll down to the 46504 section)
[2] https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1405-s...
Bumping a well behaving passenger in preference of a "more important" one doesn't really fall into either category.
Considering the passenger in this story has already consulted legal counsil, I'm thinking the lawyer agrees that he did nothing wrong.
By the look on the faces of the two lounge receptionists, you'd think I'd asked if I could take a dump on their desk. "Other people have paid membership to use this lounge" I was told in a rather disdainful way. "Sure", I said, "would you like to put a value on the fact that I will never fly with you again then?", I replied...silence - they stopped talking to me and carried on doing other stuff as if I had suddenly become invisible.
No, I did not get to use the lounge, and no, I have never flown with United since - which also means that work colleagues who travel with me are also lost to them.
“Despite the negative experience, we hope to have your continued support,” the rep concluded. “Your business is especially important to us and we'll do our utmost to make your future contacts with United satisfactory in every respect.”
Seems like they prefer a certain skill level of employee: low.
How many people were on that flight with you? If you have the right to go in the lounge then everyone else does, and obviously that's not going to work. In addition, the lounge is for those who pay for it, not for those whose flight gets cancelled. If I paid for it and all of a sudden the lounge is full of people because a flight got cancelled I wouldn't be happy.
It's your right to never fly United again, but I don't think the staff was unreasonable.
Also, there is no way to know if they were actually rude, or if you were rude first because they cancelled your flight and you asked in the wrong way.
Furthermore, if we're going to compare 'worlds,' those people working behind the counter aren't the only overworked and underpaid workers. A lot of people in the world are working in far worse conditions than behind a counter at an airport... and for less pay. Even in other low-paying jobs, I don't expect every employee to be so visually and verbally disdainful to a customer for asking a question.
They will decry working conditions (if it could mean they would be subject to those conditions), but willfully ignore the gap between themselves and laborers.
>would you like to put a value on the fact that I will never fly with you again then?
As if we're supposed to expect that someone who acts like this even asked the employees nicely. The employees should be scared they'll lose their job if they don't do exactly what I say!
There's no excuse for them being rude about it, but I don't think your expectations were especially reasonable either.
Some airlines will take over an entire terminal at an airport (e.g., JetBlue, Virgin America) and make it much better on both fronts. But in my experience that is not the norm.
I am so glad that United officially incorporated this wonderful custom. No longer do I need to decide on the bribe amount on a per-case basis, I can now just pay once!
We felt that, as full fare, 1st class passengers, delayed for 12 hours by non-weather reason, we should have access to their lounge. Nope. I'm happy to say I never flew with them again.
I wonder if that is grounds to sue.
Despite the delay, we were happy customers.
Even better if they have good beer ;)
I've flown Lufthansa plenty of times, they're great, even economy.
Some vouchers or access to the lounge, with the passenger then not bothering to claim compensation, is much cheaper for the airline.
http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights...
Sorry, but you're the one with the out of line thinking here.
https://medium.com/@thisTenqyuLife/united-airlines-should-go...
Let's not be dramatic. Actual airline safety issues that lead to horrific deaths are not being discussed here. This is just piss poor customer service that could be encountered on any property (e.g. hotels that have overbooked, etc).
People being kicked out of hotel rooms because of scheduling errors does happen. It's pretty rare.
Sure, you can ask, but on what legal basis do you have to apply violence?
I don't know what the specific regulations are surrounding hotel rooms, but certainly they're not "private property" in the same way that your house is.
Edit: From a major chain at least. I'm sure all manner of poor decisions have been made by smaller/single location operators, though they aren't really comparable to United.
If they're regulated, next time they drag someone off a plane, they'll say "We were just following the handbook and were in accordance with federal regulations. Take it up with the FAA"
So no, no need to regulate the industry.
Also, the body you want to regulate them (the government) routinely does much, much worse to people.[0]
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...
I agree; hard to see precisely how more government intervention should have been expected to fix this.
One of the more promising candidates for the cause of such great expense for various services and projects in the US versus other (generally more-regulation-heavy and more-worker-friendly) OECD states, as recently discussed on here (following a Slate Star Codex post on the topic) is the risk/expense of relying so heavily on contracts and lawsuits to sort out this kind of stuff on a case-by-case basis rather than simply stating that things will be a certain way through regulation, removing (or at least greatly reducing) the uncertainty.
There's more volatility in the stock to be sure, but I wouldn't call this "paying the price for this mistake" according to public perception just yet. I don't know airlines well enough, but if I were going to take a position, it'd be long. The initial dip in the stock price tapered off, and the current price in pre-market trading has reached parity with 4/7 despite the relative increase in volatility.
Aside from market perception, I don't think UAL is going to lose much in sales (I'd love to be proven wrong though!). Airlines do not seem to really need to compete or differentiate themselves in customer service to be profitable.
These controversies have an impact on the stock price that is like the "villain of the week" impact on a show's overall plot - it's entertaining this week, but next week no one is going to care.
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...
and explain where it allows them to refuse transport to a well-behaved passenger after boarding?
Rule 21 seems to apply, but nothing there looks like "United can refuse to transport you 'just cause'".
I've seen lots of people claim this behavior is legal, all without a shred of evidence to back them up.
Basically, they own you when you step on that plane.
Regarding the boarding, this was posted by a lawyer:
[Edit: This is about the recent incident, not this HN post]
1. First of all, it’s airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about “OVERSELLING”, which is specifically defined as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to deny boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.
2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it’s clear that what they did was illegal– they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.
3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you’ve boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn’t have been targeted. He’s going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.
I hope for United's sake these are anomalies and not a pattern of behavior.
It's actually far worse than just a "pattern of behavior", it is how United and other airlines (mostly US, but rest of the world is catching on) have deliberately structured their enterprise and the entire customer experience.
Everything revolves around "privilege". Even 20 years ago, this used to be bad. On most European airlines' flights, you just waited at the gate until your flight was called, then got in line (with some minor prioritization) then flew.
Whenever I had the misfortune of flying United (an ever rarer occasion as I wizened up to the situation and later to "codeshare" flights), half the gate was at the counter, jockeying for perks and arguing status and privilege.
This has apparently now been codified with (last I checked) 6 separate cattle lanes for boarding. Also, when I was booked on United business (a mistake), the flight attendants apparently had to try to find certain "special" elite passengers and suck up to them, in order to get little "stars" on their cards. How utterly demeaning!
Again, the US has been on the frontier of this deplorable trend, but the rest of the world is catching up, with Heathrow being the first airport I've seen with separate security lines for first class passengers. Munich caught up a little later.
To me, it looks like the airlines in general (and it looks like United in particular) are so embedded in this completely artificial conception of segregating their passengers by privilege, that results like the ones we are seeing are not anomalies and not even outliers, but the logical and maybe even unescapable consequences.
Dear Airlines: I just want to get from A to B. I don't care the slightest bit about your weird privilege system, and your efforts of forcing me to care by making "non-privileged" travel hellish just make me consider alternatives including not flying, but certainly not flying with your airline.
Oh, and it doesn't have to be that way. Quite a few years ago I was on a multi-legged Star Alliance trip, with several legs across the US getting me from Maui to a Lufthansa flight out of JFK. The penultimate stopover was Chicago, but the United flight coming in to Chicago was late and the United flight leaving didn't wait for me. I tried the United counter, but for the longest time there was simply no-one there, and when someone showed up they told me it wasn't their problem. ??
Desperate, I searched a bit and found a Lufthansa hotline. After I told my sob-story, the operator said "Oh, you're in Chicago, why do you need to go to JFK? We have a flight leaving Chicago in 3 hours, let me just rebook you on that" Said, done. It was a normal economy ticket.
Service.
Update: Check out https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser... This is a thing?!?
The same tendency towards "privileging" can be seen in the constant push for two tier health care and two tier education systems (here Alberta is a bulwark, compared to Quebec).
Anyway, great post. I'd love for this kind of analysis to reach the mainstream.
0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc
Movie theaters make money off of marked up popcorn and pop, videogames make money off of DLC and in-game purchases, etc.
When your side business starts requiring you to sabotage your main business to ensure people engage with the "side" part, is when things get interesting.
Sometimes it's better to avoid the race to the bottom altogether via regulation, ensuring that anyone who wants any improvements needs to improve things for everybody, or deal with the status quo.
That's the logic many Canadians use for vociferously opposing private schools (and I agree with it).
There is some differentiation on the service you offer, bigger seats, maybe being able to lie flat.
But that's about it, and since that's all there is the airlines just start making shit up.
"Global Services (and generally 1K) members have their food orders taken first"[1]
Really, this is a thing? Just think about how ridiculous it is. And that it obviously has to be codified somewhere in the rule book. Along with all the other silly rules that aren't public. A friend of mine is a frequent traveller, and he told me a lot of the little tricks you have to pull to get good service.
"GS members have their own phone line, [..] the agents are based in the United States and are extremely helpful."[1]
Well, my Lufthansa agent was extremely helpful to "random joe with economy class ticket".
[1] https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser...
Even the cut-rate European outfits like WOW are better.
The US that used to be on the forefront of defence of personal liberty is now largely lagging behind Europe and I would say even moving in the other direction. Even from the progressive movements of feminism and racial equality we can now at times hear voices arguing FOR segregation. Pretty depressive, eh?
We've literally come full circle.
When it's about class it's called economics.
Back in the 80s & 90s, it used to be that boarding order did not matter. You could walk up to most flights 1 minute before the door closed, and still find a space for your bag. (and you'd often get an empty seat next to you). When they started charging (and starting running more efficient, full flights), overhead space became really tight, and your boarding order (zone, whatever) suddenly became critical.
I don't see this changing anytime soon, since it mostly works to the airlines benefit. Eg, it drives membership in their frequent flyer programs and branded credit cards, as those often come with perks like earlier boarding and free checked bags. The one drawback for the airlines is the time it takes for them to turn around the plane, now that everybody is slowly looking for spots for their bags. Some airlines are now starting to offer an even lower fare class which is not allowed to use overhead space in order to allow them to turn planes around faster.
I tend to just fly first/business now so that I mostly don't have to worry about it. I rationalize it by realizing that flying is so cheap now, that a 1st class ticket costs what an economy ticket did when I was a kid (in terms of inflation adjusted money), and that economy now is essentially a new dystopian sub-class.
I don't fly United all that much so when I do - I'm in "Zone 4" for boarding which means I get to observe them do pre-boarding/global services/active military/premium and then zones 1-3 - I've never seen anything like what you're describing. Zones get called up, ppl board in their respective zone, not sure what's there to argue.
There's a "premium" boarding lane so if someone in biz class shows up when they are already boarding the common folk :) they can cut the line which I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with that.
Also, the zone-based approach even from the "Zone 4" passenger perspective is less chaotic logistics-wise as opposed to having everyone line up at the same time.
Don't get me wrong - flying is not a pleasant experience these days but I don't see this zone-based approach as a problem.
I would understand this only in first come first serve airlines without assigned seats, but I think nobody is doing this in Europe anymore, in US you stil do this?
"placing him in the middle seat between a married couple who were in the midst of a nasty fight and refused to be seated next to each other."
Crews don't even try to move them to be seated next to each others.
I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. I think anyone who doesn't really need to be in the US and/or is planning travelling with kids is likely to have some second thoughts at this point.
Recently Canada's girl guides cancelled all trips to the US: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/14/canadian-girl-gui....
I wonder if this is a first step of a large trend yet to develop.
Also time. Something like a fundamental travel industry shakeup could take decades. Here's hoping. As a Canadian, crossing that border is getting less and less appealing.
From needing to show up hours before the flight, to the invasive screenings, the insane restrictions on what you can and cannot bring, the sentiment that if you check any baggage it's basically as good as gone, the ever increasing cost, the delays, and even things like the worry about if your ticket will actually get you on the damn plane!
If I have to choose between a 3 hour flight, and a 12 hour drive, the 12 hour drive is what I pick almost every time now. Ignoring "disasters" (massive accident, theft, etc...) I'm going to have all my stuff, I know i'm not going to waste hundreds of dollars on a ticket that will get "rejected" at the last second, i'll have a car when I get to my destination, i can bring whatever the fuck I want, and it's a fraction of the cost.
I still need to show up just as early (as my local airport often has a longer line for precheck!), i still can't pack more than some stupid amount of liquid, or have my shit thrown out because I used a X-oz plastic bag which is too big!!! I still can't check bags as they just won't ever show up, or will show up damaged, have items stolen, or completely trashed from being searched. It only makes the cost more expensive, and it doesn't really help with the "invasive screening" (oh, i don't need to take my shoes off any more... i'm still getting scanned or felt up)
Plus I had to take a day off of work to go answer a bunch of stupid questions, pay them $80-ish per person, and give my fingerprints.
I live 45 minutes from CLT, with an office 45 minutes by taxi[0]from JFK, and when I fly into JFK, I can leave the house at 5am and be at the office by 10am.
[0] account_banned on Uber the first time I ever tried to use it, so, taxi it is.
Fuck the TSA and fuck the terrified Americans who keep voting to keep them.
I just looked at him puzzled, opened the bottle, and drank the water.
Now that I think of it, I was lucky he didn't taze me for my 'insolence'.
I'm gonna throw a brick through your front window. No reason for it, just gonna do it. Hey, a guy's paying me to do it. Why you gotta be so upset about it?
Let me put this in perspective. The Twin Cities gained a new light rail passenger line a couple years ago. The construction cost for this new line came to about $1 billion[1]. I use this line every single day. It takes me to work and to home and out to dinner. I love this rail line. It makes my life better.
The TSA's annual budget is $8 billion[2]. For the cost of running the TSA for one year, eight metro areas could gain a new rail line. Every year! And what does the TSA do in return for this money? Waste my time. Waste your time. Piss me off. Humiliate me with pat-downs. Why the fuck are we paying for these clowns to do this instead of doing something useful with that money? Because of Americans who have never met a person of Muslim faith but are terrified because of the loud angry white man on TV.
Yeah, it's a big deal and I'm fucking pissed. Why aren't you?
[1] http://finance-commerce.com/2015/04/progress-mn-metro-green-...
[2] https://www.rt.com/usa/tsa-useless-airport-security-479/
As for TSA security theater and it's bloated budget, right on.
And then I agreed with the TSA security theater notion and bloated budget which goes against your thought I've given up my last ounce of humility in return for "security".
I suggest you read my statement again because you clearly misunderstood.
What kind of nonsense are you people preaching here?
How was he supposed to know that it's really water?
Just because it is clear liquid in a sealed bottle proves nothing, even if you are willing to drink it on the spot. See above, the part about heaven and zealots.
If he said "water" repeatedly, that's not because he actually knows or cares whether it is really water. It very well may be water. He's just saying that that is the rule; even if your liquid is just water, you need to ditch it. He's not going to say all this stuff about "how do I know it's really water" because he's not there to argue; he's just trying to move the line along.
This information all seems like common sense to me.
At that point, the rule isn't "you aren't allowed to bring liquids onto a plane because it might be a bomb". The rule is "you have to bring your bomb on the plane in a special bag".
However it did change my calculus when debating train vs plane for trips. It used to be anything under about a 10 hour train ride was a no brainer, now that's more like a 3 hour train ride.
Plus driving is cheaper and less stressful...
In every case the security involved an X-ray for luggage and walking thru a metal detector. That was it.
Australia in 2014 otoh was nuts. I was taken aside and magic wanded at one airport, subject to a personal body scan (???) and patdown at another, and interrogated on my way out (apparently "company employee" was not an adequate description of my occupation).
Combined with other security theater like police leading dogs around at the gate, it made me not want to visit there again. It was scary!
My experience going through security has always been much smoother than when I traveled to the US. Lines are smaller, security is more relaxed (never had to take my shoes off for example) and the security staff for the most part are much kinder.
When I flew through the US (arrived at DFW to connect to SFO, drove to LA and went from LAX to JFK) I think the only airport that everything was smooth was SFO. DFW was meh-ok but I had to go through immigration so don't want to consider it. But oh my fucking god, I pray to never have to go through LAX again, never expected to be treated like cattle with rude agents everywhere. JFK was a little bit better but not by much.
So yes, comparing my experience between LAX, SFO, JFK and DFW against ARN, MUN, TXL, SXF, BCN, FRA, CDG, AMS, ZUR and DUB... There's really no comparison, never felt mistreated or had any kind of problem with security staff or time in the queues in any of the European airports.
Mind you I'm from Europe, our gas prices are 4x as high and for trips to e.g. the UK or Scandinavia we have to cross a body of water. There's some toll roads too in e.g. France, and Germany wants to introduce those too.
The cheapest we could have flown is about $200 per person (2 people), not to mention taxi/uber costs.
So for one person, it might be a wash, but for 2+ people its very much cheaper to drive.
For example, I can fly round trip from Chicago, IL (ORD) to Miami, FL (MIA) for $325 per person (tax included, no checked luggage) taking about 7 hours each way (45 minutes to airport, arrive 2 hours early, 3:15 hour flight, 15 minutes to get situated, 45 minutes to destination). To drive that would take 21 hours and 1,400 miles each way which would cost about $300 in gas for my vehicle. This is really a best case scenario for flying being potentially as cheap as driving. If you want to fly to any smaller international or regional airport without frequent direct flights, the cost can easily be a couple hundred dollars more per person.
Actually, I wonder how much this will last considering that fossil energy will likely cost more and more and that more and more people from developing countries start to travel too.
In short, flight prices are unlikely to be severely effected by oil prices again.
PS: Oil is 53$ per barrel right now, 2x price spikes in commodity prices are fairly common historically.
Since the oil price crash, investment in exploration has gone down dramatically, so I would argue the contrary.
When the current supplies start to dwindle, I would not be surprised to see oil prices strike $200 or more a barrel.
The oil crash removed the cost of exploration from oil prices, so current prices are no longer a indication of probable future supply.
There's a multi-year lag between exploration and crude coming to market. While futures/derivatives can cover that exploration for future crude extraction, there's a growing spectre of competitive alternative energy that will likely reduce the attractiveness of crude – i.e. there being higher risk of relative oil obsolescence, the anticipated return on futures diminishes, meaning less money going into exploration, even with what will be present-day high prices.
Given the lag in investment, I suspect that when the "spike" comes people will look as much to ramping up more immediate alternatives (solar, wind) than exploring for oil.
The above is all speculation of course, but the 5-10 year market forces at work are not pushing towards lower or even stable oil prices, but towards much higher ones – at least until demand drastically drops, which some figure is at least 15-20 years out.
Just my 2¢.
The fracking technology for oil and gas is still on it's Moore's Law curve and is getting cheaper and cheaper so in fact more and more fracking is coming on-line so that we're unlikely to see prices much above $50 per barrel.
Mar 21, 2017 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-21/big-oil-s...
April 12, 2017 https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-12/u-s-shale...
I keep http://oilprice.com/ in my RSS feed to keep tabs on the subject. It looks like the shale exploration is kicking up again (from the site and from friends working in the western part of ND).
and this helps http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Why-Breakeven-Prices-A...
Demand == Supply
And that's even more true¹ for stuff like oil, that has a low volumetric price. Do you really think demand peaked because people could not find more uses for the stuff?
Oil is in a peak production crash. The prices volatility is a natural consequence of it, and will always stay as high as consumers' budgets allows.
1 - That means, it's true for almost any misleading definition of those terms you can come-up with.
On the other hand, planes may become electric, and the cost of solar power is rapidly falling. If this trend continues, it will likely become cheaper to fly in the future.
Even if planes don't become electric any time soon, other demand for oil may be displaced, lowering its price.
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to piloting, but here on HN I've read other stories on light aircraft and training, and how forgiving it is and how it handles plays a very important factor in choosing an airplane as a trainer, no idea how that one does.
A nice advantage for a trainer is that unlike a combustion engine aircraft, a battery powered aircraft's mass isn't changing over time, so the learning pilot can expect a more consistent handling experience.
Making electric motors to spin propellers isn't that hard. We already do this for ships: any modern cruise liner has electrically-powered propellers (screws) that propel the ship. The challenge on a plane is getting the power to the motors. You could do a serial hybrid system, where a diesel generator makes power for the motors; this is what they do on cruise ships, but while it works well there for various reasons (including the variable-speed nature of running a cruise ship, and the usefulness of "azipods" for maneuverability), it's not likely to work so well for planes since planes in flight run their engines near full-throttle all the time (so you end up using more fuel, not less, due to conversion losses). So the idea is running the planes on batteries, like electric cars do now. The problem there is the weight of the batteries needed to store that much power is prohibitive. If someone invents battery tech that can store significantly more energy with the same weight, then the equation will change and we could very well see electric airplanes.
But seriously, flying sucks, I've driven 20+hrs to avoid it in the past. Usually worth it since I get to plan out stops and see old friends on the way down the west coast.
I'd rather rent a car and book overnight hotels than buy a US-based airline ticket, to the extent that I have driven (with another driver) 50 hours on the road to avoid 12 hours in the air. And with the prices of airline tickets, even renting the largest passenger vehicle for a week plus two weekends and staying in mid-range hotels was less than half the money cost for four passengers. Also, we got to see Oklahoma in its "everything is on fire" season.
That is the extent to which air travel has fallen. I would rather drive across a state that is literally on fire than fly an airline in the US. I would rather piss at a New Mexico low-water-use rest stop than in an airliner's toilet. I would rather be surrounded by an entire herd of leather-clad hog-riding bikers in the middle of nowhere than put a laptop or decent camera in checked baggage. And if I ever get forcibly dragged out of my seat by some thug, I'd like the cops to be on my side.
But you know what sounds not cool: being in an environment where you have no rights, and as you put it, are at the mercy of thugs.
Which is why he drives... I'll show myself out.
Actually I think the cost of fuel to fly a passenger from New York to London will be cheaper in 30 years, for two reasons: (a) Motor vehicles will no longer be powered by gasoline; and (B) planes will continue to become more fuel efficient.
When I was flying back from Paris, I sat next to an Airbus engineer who was working on retrofitting jet engines to run on a biofuel produced via fermentation rather than normal fuel.
No clue how far along that project is or how promising it is, but there are folks in the industry thinking about this problem.
The biggest thing that could prevent this welcomed development? The government. Specifically that the FAA is likely to clamp down on "Uber Air Taxi" market and declare them common carriers.
Got to protect those monopolies.
Until that comes down, jets will simply not approach uber-useful affordability for even people who buy full-fare first class seats.
(Fuel consumption is also much higher both in gal/h and in $/hr for jets compared to pistons)
And piston planes are not nearly as useful for air taxi due to them being unable to fly high enough to avoid most weather. Oh and in general turbines are an order of magnitude less likely to fail per hour.
The FAA has some really arcane rules, which is why aviation law is an actual speciality. Like, for instance, as a private pilot I can't fly a coworker with me to a conference and be reimbursed by my employer, but I can fly just myself and be reimbursed. There's a lot of subtleties to the FARs.
But if you're talking about private pilots flying people around like Uber drivers do, I can understand why they would clamp down on that.
Commercial and Air Transport pilots have much more rigorous standards than private pilots do, including stricter medical requirements and more thorough yearly medical exams. Private pilots will soon be able to get by with just an annual physical at a family doctor after their initial medical, whereas ATPs have to have a yearly EKG done, for instance. There's also more thorough training, higher hour requirements, etc.
Basically, people and equipment flying passengers are held to the highest standards (sometimes, maybe too high) which is one reason commercial aviation is so safe, and the FAA does not want private pilots who may not meet those standards running underground, fly-by-night airlines. All it takes is one crash wiping out a family in an "uber air taxi," and maybe a few people on the ground if it hits a house or something. In addition to being a tragedy the people involved and aviation in general, it would bring a ton of negative publicity to the relevant licensing agencies followed by mountains of lawsuits.
Without massive changes to the current aviation legal system, I can't see any way an "Uber air taxi" could work. Unlike a lot of cities which may not fully enforce a prohibition on services like Uber, the FAA will bring the wrath of God down on anyone they find willfully breaking the rules.
I frequently go from Portland to San Jose and back in the same day- I get meetings done and am home in time to put my kids to bed. I also just generally fly pretty frequently. I've got an Arab name and my dad comes from 'one of those countries'. I lived in that country for a few years as a child, and I've visited a few of 'those countries' in the last three or for years. I've literally not been hassled beyond the occasional extended screening XXXX on my boarding pass- like, maybe 2 times in the last three years. I have been bumped from a flight zero times in my entire life.
150 years go if you wanted to travel from California to Oregon you'd be going up the Applegate Trail and the TSA wouldn't even be top 10 annoyances along the way for travel. I say that semi in jest, nor am I endorsing the TSA in anyway shape or form. But frankly, if you're worried about getting bumped or hassled by the TSA I think you're worried about the wrong thing or you've got a very peaceful life that hasn't got many things to worry about.
I'm not saying commercial air travel isn't without its issues, it's generally just kind of annyoying to stand in lines, stand in more lines, then get crammed into a metal tube with my knees smashed against the seat in front me. It's just that the likelihood of some catastrophe (drunk, mental issues, etc.) that isn't self imposed is quite low.
My n=1 anecdote is just that, but I would wager I'm more likely to be hassled or be hit by airline failure given all of my variables AND the sheer number of flights I take compared to the average person. Yet hear am I saying the airlines and TSA aren't really THAT bad. Talk about playing devil's advocate.
Have even cracked a joke or two with TSA agents & gotten a "Welcome to America, enjoy your holiday" at LAX.
I don't get ever get bumped from flights and I get pulled out for "random" searches on average of 1 times per year for the past 5 years.
Again, all anecdotal, but I'm the definition of the guy who should hate the airport. I only just dislike it.
I don't ever get bumped from flights and I get pulled out for "random" searches on average of 1 times per year for the past 5 years.
Again, all anecdotal, but I'm the definition of the guy who should hate the airport. I only just dislike it.
I'm not the person you're replying to, but I do have something to say about this.
Your situation is a bit different in that you need to be able to get from Portland to SF and back in a single day. Some people, myself included, don't have that restriction and value the journey as much as we value the destination. Personally, I absolutely LOVE long road trips. Seeing sites, eating at cozy roadside diners, listening to super loud music and sleeping in my car are all things I look forward to.
I really hope Microsoft doesn't fly their candidates with United anymore. A couple of big companies cancelling their corporate contracts might give them a reality check.
I don't plan on flying again any time soon.
At busy airports like JFK and NRT, I show up no more than 90 minutes before boarding time, which gives me time to check my bags and go through security, and still have time to grab a snack. At smaller airports, like MCI, I show up 30 minutes before boarding time and still have time to relax a bit.
I prefer to check bags. It's free on domestic flights for me and a passenger because I have airline-branded credit card, I avoid the pain of trying to find a space for my carry-on, and it just feels nicer to be able to walk through security and to my gate without dragging around a huge suitcase. I've never once had trouble with checked baggage - no valuables stolen, nothing lost.
And what's this about the "ever-increasing cost"?! Flights are cheaper than ever. If you're lucky enough to live near a hub, you can get anywhere in the world for a decent price. At smaller airports, the hubs are just one flight away and might not even cost any more. If they do it's only $100 or so.
A 3 hour flight is more like a 20 hour drive. Take Chicago to Miami for example. I just looked some flights. A nonstop flight is 3 hr 5 min and cost about $200 round trip. You'd spend more than that on gas for just the one way trip if you drove. Not to mention a hotel since you'd probably want to break it up to 2 days driving.
Flying commercially sucks, of course, but the security line concerns are overblown. They've been saying "3 hours before departure for international, 2 hours for domestic" for decades, but I just ignore it. I routinely show up 30min before boarding for domestic flights (so, 55-60min before departure) and never have an issue. Worst security line I've seen at SFO was 25min. I was sweating it a bit, but I got to my gate exactly at boarding time, and it was a ghost town.. they hadn't even bothered to get the gate agents there yet!
The only thing you have to be careful of is, if checking a bag, to have it checked 45 or 50min before departure, that's the the tricky one.
There's a NAFTA tribunal held once a week at major border crossings with Can/US not many people know about that can overturn the overzealous authority of border guards if anybody receives an arbitrary ban from entry I've had to use it a few times.
As for United Airlines monopolies allow this behavior to happen because where else are you going to go. United holds 73% of slots at Newark for example
That's most likely just the normal variation in the flight schedules - they can vary dramatically not just by time of year, but also time of day.
For example, I just took a flight from Dubai to NYC (and this was after Trump's Muslim ban came into effect). The flight was packed, with nearly every seat full. Last year, I took the same flight but a few hours later, and it was nearly empty - almost every person in coach had the entire row to themselves (which, for a 15-hour flight, was great!).
Or put another way, if the flight on the way from Chicago to Rome was full and the flight from Madrid to Chicago was not, that doesn't really tell you much about aggregate tourism from other countries to the US, unless you're also making the assumption that there are literally planes full of people emigrating from the US every day.
In general terms, you can't really have a direction imbalance - especially due to the reasons you are positing. The vast majority of people flying (either direction) is on a tourist visa. Those people have to return as well as get there, so if a flight is full headed to Europe pretty much the same number of people must return. And vice versa.
Immigration/long-term business stays/etc. are a tiny fraction of the folks on the airplane. I suppose there could be an epidemic of US tourists overstaying their EU visas but I kind of doubt it :)
You'd see a reduction in load factor in both directions if there is a dropoff of EU tourism.
Anecdotally; I flew to Australia a few months ago on an economy-class ticket purchased at very short notice. My trip through both Auckland and Melbourne airports was very pleasant, and I had no need to even interact with any of the personnel the whole way through. The flight was full but not overbooked and we arrived early.
Reading the stories about travel to the US is very discouraging and erases any desire I had to visit. I suppose there isn't much of an incentive to improve anything in the US, because the economy doesn't rely on tourism to the same extent we do here.
In the USA, you do have to accept that they're a lot more picky about liquids, and they do make you take off your shoes, but seriously, just read the signs and you won't be surprised.
The worst problem I experienced was a 30-delay one time.
We just moved the whole thing to Paris instead as we had issues with all of the above, including employees that have visited "dangerous" countries.
The thing that pushed everyone over was when our former prime minster was harassed[1] at the border for having been to a meeting in Iran. It says in his passport that he was a former prime minster, but apparently none is safe from the US border guards.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norwa...
This is all within the rights of America as a sovereign state of course, but it does mean that the call to cancel or limit the visa-free travel agreement that currently allows US citizens to visit the EU without a visa is gaining momentum (tit-for-tat politics).
Jake Appelbaum had a sendoff speech where he covered how his fellow journalists were putting him in grave danger when calling him an "Internet Activist" meanwhile he was publishing in the same paper as they were. He also covered how The Guardian left Julian Assange out to hang, allowed known compromised systems to remain in day to day use, and banned fellow journalists at other news orgs from writing about quite a few papers/topics from the Snowden archives.
I'm not sure what you mean by your comment with respect to what I wrote — I'm not inferring anything. The ESTA visa waiver program allowed for some leeway in granting people who visited certain countries (e.g., Iran, Iraq) access in certain cases. This seems to have included politicians and journalists. I expect that the US government did limit this to accredited journalists.
Personally I agree with those critics who point out that the whole ESTA program is effectively a thinly disguised visa program. It is a shame that it exists in the first place.
But people that come to NYC have a much greater experience. In the past month I met both an Italian who came here for the first time and an Israeli and both of them were so happy to be here.
I think your employer should schedule a trip to NYC for these 70 employees -- they must deserve it!
But here is a real story. I'm American and "member of the tribe" who has been to Israel many times as shown by the passport stamps, speaks Hebrew and I didn't arrive at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv to a Turkish Air flight to Istanbul 3 hours in advance of the flight. My take-on was packed away and I was strip searched down to my underwear.
I was amused and happy for the security, but some people might be bothered by that.
I'm 100% sure it's unpleasant, but their motives are far more trustworthy than the TSA's.
> I'm 100% sure it's unpleasant,...
Well, for me, I am only too happy when there are these kinds of security measures....
Also, the screeners are all former military (even women in Israel are drafted) and have been trained to screen according to emotional response. (emotional prosody).
In my opinion, if US airport security was run according to Israeli standards, 9/11 would have been less likely.
That's all it takes.
Also, IIRC, El-Al has an air martial (again former military in every case) on each flight.
International tourism both in and out would shrink dramatically, as there are precious few religions that consider anywhere in the US to be special holy sites, and plenty of places to see in the US that don't require intensive security screening. No one I know would ever be amused by a strip search.
The Israeli air travel strategy just doesn't scale up quite that well.
Also, we have plenty of veterans who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. who have real combat experience that we could pay more money for at TSA and train and staff appropriately. We could have air martials on every flight.
> "No one I know would ever be amused by a strip search."
Well, it was my own fault and a new experience and the agent/military guy was well trained and respectful. I was only too happy that they security was so through.
Israeli security is very professional and I don't feel nearly the same way with TSA in the US.
The US couldn't route everyone through one airport. It's too big. So put one on each coast. That was just a pinch of hyperbole. The US could not practically do that. But neither could it install Ben Gurion levels of security in all of its international airports, because even with all the combat vets, there are too few Americans would would have the capability, competence, composure, and willingness to take the job. And for those who would, the cost of training would be enormous. Just one airport, like O'Hare, which served 78 million passengers last year, had more than 4 times the volume of Ben Gurion's 18 million. And you would have to increase security for every single international airport, or it wouldn't work.
Americans have a different mindset than Israelis. The nation was born from resistance to arbitrary and capricious colonial restrictions, and has never been surrounded by enemies on all sides. Our history has led many of us to deeply distrust our own corrupt governments and police. Here, "security guard" is a low-prestige job for losers, as embodied in the "mall cop" archetype. You might be able to install increased security in Boston or NYC, where recent history instills a greater sense of insecurity, but it is only a short drive away from the state whose motto is "live free or die", home to libertarian festivals where an amalgamation of activist goals is to one day openly carry firearms, while openly vaporizing marijuana, jaywalking topless to request public records, while recording police in the act of not hassling anyone.
The last time I traveled for work (to New Hampshire, actually) I got to witness the American airport security procedure for checking a firearm. My co-worker apparently never went anywhere without it. And that's a typical American thing. An incredibly large number of us are almost constantly armed. Legally. You can't stop someone 3 miles out from the airport at a checkpoint and say the car can't proceed with a weapon in it. The NRA would take that all the way to the Supreme Court and win.
Even the ineffectual security theater they put on in airports now induces hordes of Americans to prefer ground transport, rather than put up with it. And not only are Americans obsessed with their own freedom, but we are also a nation of bargain hunters. This is the country that gave Wal-Mart to the world, and exported many of its own manufacturing jobs to other countries. If we had to pay more for air travel just to get expensive real security instead of cheap placebo, the airlines would simply go bankrupt [more often than they already do].
So if you try to say "arrive 3 hours before departure or strip search" in most US airports, you will have a lot of empty terminals. For one, adding 3 hours to a flight between, for instance, Los Angeles and San Francisco is making that 3 hours in an airport plus an hour in the air plus another 30 minutes for luggage and ground transport versus just getting onto I-5 and driving for 6 hours. From Chicago to Louisville, to name a flight recently in the news, that would be a 5 hour drive compared to 4.5 hours between airports. Hell, last time I flew on my own dime, I drove two hours, to reach another airport with cheaper fares. The local airport actually runs ads on television, begging people not to do that.
First, you are speaking in terms of numerators but not denominators. Sure, we have 78 million people going through O'Hare of Chicago vs. 18 million for Ben Gurion. But the US has far more people and far more wealth than Israel as well as very large number of seasoned combat veterans.
Many Israelis carry firearms including those that live outside the green line. Those armed Israelis have stopped terrorists. In the case of a Yeshiva in Jerusalem a few years ago a terrorist killed 8 students but was stopped by another student who had a firearm (of course, former military). I know of another person who shot a terrorist who was shooting a machine gun at a bus. He was a hero but Israel doesn't publicize it because it makes him a target.
It may not be as perfect to have US International airports have the same level of security as Israel, but it could be much better than it is today. I'm not certain why Israel has the 3 hour rule.
As it is, for flights, airlines ask that you come to the airport two hours in advance, and in particular that is true for international flights.
Airports should receive more funding for security to 1) speed up the process and 2) use formal military combat vets properly trained. I suspect a small increase in the flight ticket tax to use for airport security would make the difference.
> "the airlines would simply go bankrupt [more often than they already do]."
They often go bankrupt partially because air travel for most is a commodity and it is hard to make profits with a commodity with many substitutions. Of course, consolidation such as United buying out Continental a few years ago makes airlines a bit less of a commodity because of fewer alternatives for flight.
Just chiming in to add some context to this. In terms of area, population, and GDP, Israel is pretty close to New Jersey.
https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-privacy-us-border-2017
It's an impossible to comply with demand, that gives the person evaluating entirety to claim compliance or non-compliance based on whim. Not a far cry from a poll test.
https://www.shaheen.senate.gov/news/press/shaheen-leads-lett...
That's quite a statement. I certainly enjoyed my NYC trip a couple of years ago, but there are many european cities that I rather (re)visit before going back to the US. This is not only because of the current administration (though that doesn't help). People have different preferences.
Europe is very beautiful. But for the creative energy and vibrancy NYC is the place to be.
http://www.theonion.com/article/84-million-new-yorkers-sudde...
But thats just me! Everyone has their own preferences.
Number of Apple Stores in Manhattan = 7 (incl. one 24/365)
Number of Apple Stores in NYC 5 Boroughs = 10
Number of stores Paris (incl. La Defense) = 4
Number of stores London = 5
Number of stores Berlin = 1
Jazz/Blues/all kinds of music, a city open 24/7 full of creative vibrancy. 40% of New Yorkers not born in USA. We don't do BrExit here forcing (legal) residents out.
NYC has a 24 hour subway system which costs about $120 / month for unlimited rides. London and Paris shut down their subways at 12:30 AM. Thus, NYC is more committed to green, not forcing people to use gas guzzlers at night.
How about the Muslims?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trum...
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/bring-niki-mossafe...
And HN discussion of the previous link:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13509509
It is not all Muslim Visa holders, but from 7 countries that were determined by the Obama Administration to be a security risk to the US because they don't do adequate screening at their airports. For example, Turks can come to the US as can Muslims from Israel or anywhere else except those 7 countries.
The Visa issue is regrettable, but it is only temporary and the people will eventually be able to return. Those in the US can remain here and not asked to leave as in the case of BrExit.
Among their many other contributions to the city, the Halal food trucks are a center-point of NYC's late night culture.
These cities are also 24/7, to a greater extent than any Western city, I would argue.
Have you really been to NYC? Jazz, Blues, much other music, etc.
No 24/365 Apple Store in Asia.
# Apple Stores Tokyo = 4
# Apple Stores Shanghai = 7
# Apple Stores Seoul = 0 (Possible 1 in future)
# Apple Stores NYC = 10 including the 24/365 store
My experience of New York was tall buildings, narrow streets with garbage on the sidewalks, ridiculously expensive rents, homelessness on streets, lots of people walking around but very few actually willing to have a conversation. I enjoyed the street food and it was a great experience but I would chose a number of places around the world over New York for a company trip.
Well, with a 24/365 store I sleep easier at night knowing that if I need another unit or in person assistance when on a tight deadline I can get one. :-)
Also, Apple products, Macs, iPhones, iPads, are the tools of choice for the creative industries (media, photo, fashion, software development, much engineering, ....) and so number of stores and a 24/365 store is an index of creativity and vibrancy.
A couple of years ago at the 24/365 store I was told by an Apple Genius Bar person that the sales volume of that store alone is nearly that of the Macy's on 34th which takes an entire city block and that Macy's is the largest store in America.
> "My experience of New York was tall buildings, narrow streets..."
Well, I guess it depends on one's frame of reference. For me, NYC has an energy of its people -- 40% were not even born in the US and have come to make their way in NYC/America. I am always meeting new nice people in coffee shops who are living in NYC and from all over the world. The UN Building is in NYC, but NYC is the UN in itself.
Did you check out the blues/jazz throughout the city but especially in Greenwich Village? The large assortment of museums? The delis with corned beef and pastrami?, other sorts of ethnic foods?
Perhaps if when you return to NYC you meet up with someone who knows the city and you'll feel better.
Which is a bit circular if you're trying to convince anyone else, but as a personal opinion that works fine (I'm serious, you like this sort of thing, good for you. Not so good for the homeless, which you just rather blatantly ignored--ouch--but hey there's probably worse places in the world so ehm yeah! good for you!).
Apple is not nearly as popular in Europe as it is in the US. Software development and engineering, definitely not. Graphics design, sure, but I feel that'll change soon. Sound design / music producing, I'd say about 50/50, but they'll just use both a Windows machine and a Mac in their studio because they like to have the best tools (and VSTs) of both.
> Well, with a 24/365 store I sleep easier at night knowing that if I need another unit or in person assistance when on a tight deadline I can get one. :-)
Not having tight deadlines at night so frequently that I'd need a 24/7 store is what'd make me sleep easier, personally.
Of course, if Microsoft keeps improving the Linux WSL (newest Win10 Creators update adds a lot -- still more to go) it will be a very viable competitor.
Europe is very beautiful, but all of the energy is in the US. This morning I met a couple of Danish women visiting NYC and they love the energy of NYC and the idea of working in a startup / Silicon Valley type environment.
For certain, NYC is not for everyone, but for many, myself included (and those Danish women) NYC just feels so energetic and interesting.
As for deadlines it is the nature of much work...some failures happen at night or holidays when stores are generally closed.
By comparison, every place you can reach within an hour or two of Paris probably is a place worth being. (This was my experience in Madrid, and I'm extrapolating here for Paris.) That's a lot less pressure forcing people into the city center, because people can enjoy themselves much closer to where they live.
You take 24 hour Apple stores as a sign of vibrancy. I'd sooner look at the density of independent bakeries.
As to your subway comment, your conclusion is absurd. It seems likely to me that the savings from having fewer redundant tracks (which would be needed to facilitate maintenance in a 24 hour system) would more than offset the small demand for middle-of-the-night trips that can't wait until the next morning.
Ah, such memories of my visit to that vibrant city ...
As someone not living in the US, travelling to the US is not looking good either. I know of many, many people who have written off visiting the USA for the foreseeable future.
I'm one of those and I've spent many years in the US in the past (lived in NE and VA for 5 years in total and visited over 30 states). Sadly, as much as I enjoy visiting the States, it simply feels like too much of a liability to visit at the moment. I'll reconsider in 4 years if it hasn't got any worse.
By contrast, I've travelled to a lot of countries that the USA considers dangerous or extreme (e.g. Sudan), and have had nothing but pleasant and easy experiences.
According to some, it already has:
"All this has resulted in an estimated loss of $185 million in business travel bookings from January 28 to February 4, as calculated by the Global Business Travel Association. The drop-off in tourism is predicted to result in 4.3 million fewer visitors this year, which adds up to a staggering loss of $7.4 billion in revenue for the US."
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/trump-sl...
Being a wet-behind-the-ears youth I had little idea of how abnormal this was, or how to properly and successfully complain to a gigantic company, and was also secretly enjoying my extra time in the US exploring the hidden places in and around an airport.
But some of the other passengers were frantic. Three days stuck at '90s-era Logan, because United couldn't get their act together and compounded their engineering & operational failures with dismally bad customer service. Some of them were missing major life events as a result.
Twentyish years on I have Legendary frequent flyer status, and exactly no dollars whatsoever were spent towards it with United. I choose to spend extra on friends and family routing with other airlines simply that they may avoid UAL. "Never again". Vote with your wallet.
At Boston Logan airport me and some colleagues (+ the rest of the people on the plane waiting at customs) were once barked at: "The next person who forgot to fill out the back of his green form will be sent back to his home country!" No smiles, just a death stare while you put in your finger prints... It's a shame, it's such a beautiful country but I could do without.
I sure hope not. Isolation only fuels nationalism. Nationalism fuels irrational decisions. Irrational decisions lead to fascism.
If you want your people to dehumanize a culture, the first step is to isolate your people from that culture. Don't allow your people any opportunity to empathize with that culture. If you continue to isolate your people, you can breed an "us vs them" sentiment. This is perfect if you want to start a war with popular support.
This is a direct consequence of charging for checked bags.
Now every flight takes twice as long to board and disembark because everyone is carrying as much carry on as they can and trying to stuff them into the overhead bins.
Annoyingly, they usually start making announcements about gate-checking bags for free so they are not really reducing the costs and they're encouraging passengers to drag their bags through security (slowing down that line) in the hope they can gate check the bag for free (or not at all) in order to save $100/bag.
The airlines should offer free bag check and charge $100/bag per carry-on in the overhead bins (under the seat is free still).
I agree, One free bag check should be compulsory. They should also ensure that your bags arrive faster than you at the baggage carousel. May be one day with the advent of robots.
This is the reason I do carry-on only if I can get away with it. I want to keep my airport-time as low as reasonably possible. I also try to optimise my seating for this purpose rhen its something I can do (without paying for priority stuff). For example, on a recent flight, I was the 3rd person through the passport checks and the first person (as far as I could tell) leaving the secure area.
This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.
Edit: See lawyer quote from tiatia.
The first question is whether you can have rent-a-cops throw a passenger off a plane after they have taken their seat. As I understand it, that is not legal.
The second question is about over-booking more broadly. After all, though there's a legal distinction between a passenger a second before boarding and a second after, from a customer service standpoint they're still denied the seat they were promised. Is it right that an airline can sell 310 tickets on a 300 seat plane, deliberately entering into 10 contracts it knows it cannot honour? As I understand it, that is legal. But should it be?
I assume there are weasel words in the contract(airline ToS) to allow this.
Imagine the outrage if someone missed their flight by 10 minutes and they had to buy an entirely new ticket. If airlines did that, they wouldn't need to overbook though. Alternatively, instead of overbooking, the airline just doubles ticket prices.
Denied boarding is actually pretty rare, happens to about 0.1% of passengers: https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu...
The other approach would be to never overbook, but if you're the only airline not overbooking, your margins will be lower. Empty seats don't make money.
However, having a policy of not forcing passengers to relinquish seats they've already sat down in would...
I'm fairly certain retail banks can borrow from the FED to mitigate that.
If you believe what United did in this case or the case of the doctor being dragged out is illegal, please continue to pay close attention to what happens in the latter case, as I'm sure it will continue to be reported on for at least the foreseeable future.
Specifically, notice the distinct lack of criminal charges.
> This is boat allocation on Titanic all over again.
This is just funny in this instance.
Contrary to James Cameron's abominable film, boat allocation on the Titanic was quite fair. One's odds of survival were better in First Class, but this was likely due to First Class passengers being closer to the life boats. Notably, women & children had a markedly better chance of surviving than men, despite not being notably 'privileged' in early 20th century society.
C.f. http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/...
So he paid the cost of first class but flied economy and when they get called out on it they think all they need to do is compensate for the difference? With the way he was treated?! How can you call yourself "Customer care specialist" and think that is a way to treat customers?
I didn't say it did. They have to tell their top paying customer "no" or charge enough to make this possible. Humanity/morality should come in to the equation at some point too.
An alternative of course is to run an auction to be bought out of the seat, but they can't absolutely guarantee a seat that way. If they want to guarantee a seat, they must keep one; nothing else is a guarantee of a seat, only a promise to try and give one.
I wonder how many millions all this is going to end up costing United in the end.
See the welcome kit here: http://pizzainmotion.boardingarea.com/2017/02/07/inside-2017...
Fun anecdote: a few months ago I booked a Star Alliance ticket and had a United segment ORD-EWR. I was the only (!) non-upgraded revenue first class passenger on the flight according to the gate agent, but boarded the plane 33rd, thanks to "Global Services" passengers (including the ones in coach) getting to board before me. They also got to order food first, so I was left with the leftover food item, and also got their drink orders and other attention lavished on them first, despite the fact that all the other Global Services passengers in F were flying on free upgrades to F instead of paying for it.
Note that "they got to order first" meant that they literally just skipped over me when taking food/drink orders and when I asked what they were doing the FA brusquely said "We'll get to you in a moment SIR!"
"The biggest benefit to Global Services is the excellent service that is given to those with the status. They receive what can only be described as the royal treatment. Below, some examples:[...]
Irritated with a flight attendant or gate agent? Complain about it and he/she will be reprimanded by HR."
So if you are a GS passenger you can literally get people reprimanded by their own HR? Fab.
These posts are often at great length, and laden with appeals to authority. Some might be trolls. But others appear to be by people who genuinely value an environment where the lowliest airline employee, no matter how poor their judgement, no matter how absent their discretion, is more right than any customer. Munoz's email to employees, of which I've not seen a retraction, takes this line wholeheartedly. It's a trait that suffuses the industry. Who the hell ARE these people?
T: "everyone sit down now, please"
P: "my chair has wet paint on it Sir, do I have to sit down too?"
Should the teacher say "always do as I say first time" next or should they acknowledge they were operating on imperfect knowledge of the situation and modify the command? This is only slightly contrived, some pupils will sit in the paint through fear of the teacher (some, occasionally, through over-bearing desire to please the teacher).
Always allowing a command to be questioned develops critical thinking and encourages creativity whilst demanding pupils use good communications. It's harder to handle with a group, for sure, but worth it IMO.
Questioning a command in order to get a reason for complying does not equate to "not doing what an accountable adult says". "Because I say so" should be the last fallback, not the first and only reason available.
It requires humility. Being corrected by a 7yo, say, in front of a group can feel humiliating; but it's more important to do what is right than it is to instill a misplaced sense of obedience as being the highest virtue.
This allows for the fallibility of the accountable adult and respects - and develops - the faculty of the child(ren).
Americans. Seriously, authoritarianism is so deeply ingrained in American culture (right now?) that for any abuse of authority, no matter how petty, most people will argue that the problem is not the authority figure, but the person who decided not to comply with authority. I don't know exactly how this happened. But it's not just the airline industry.
In many areas of life I've found that culturally we have been trained to view anyone who sticks out as being childish regardless of the merit of their grievances. For example, if someone lies to me and signs me up for a contract I did not agree to (such as adding on extras that I didn't agree) and I react negatively, I'm seen as childish and they are seen as doing their job, even though they committed fraud. Demanding to see a contract and read it before I sign it is seen as being a disruption (because they lose business for an hour while I read the contract). I once refused to sign a statement saying a work order had been fulfilled because of wording saying that signing the work order as having been done counted as signing some other documents. I was viewed as the bad guy in the social situation because the serviceman would not be paid for the work (since I didn't sign the work order) even though it was their company who made it so that signing for the work order being complete also signed other legal documents I didn't want to agree to. I looked the part of the asshole, not the company.
The tin foil hat wearer in me wonders if our society has been pushed in this direction on purpose as it benefits faceless corporations.
> Fearns, 59, is president of TriPacific Capital Advisors, an Irvine investment firm that handles more than half a billion dollars in real estate holdings on behalf of public pension funds.
"What United and all companies need to do is to train and empower workers to deal with specific issues as they arise,” she said. “Don’t just follow whatever is written in your policies."
Unfortunately that's so often the case - one may as well be conversing with a robot in many customer service situations. I can only imagine it's just as frustrating for the disempowered service reps.
1. When did this happen? The article makes it look like this just happened, but does not mention a date. I suspect the omission is on purpose (if so, boo!; if not, sorry, but please add event date).
2. The fact that the guy bumped off is rich is irrelevant (and going on and on about it dulls the message).
3. The fact that the seat the guy was downgraded was noisy (people arguing on both sides) is irrelevant.
IMO the main point is valid -- the person was first to the seat and in general whoever gets into the seat first keeps it in case of a seat collision or a duplicate ticket. He should not have been asked to free it to another passenger (who should have been downgraded instead and compensated somehow). But conflating this with unrelated issue to get on a "United stinks" meme is a cheap trick. My 2c.
It happened on April 1st. He was offered the difference in price between the first class seat and the economy seat. That seems like poor compensation since this is basically a form of denied boarding, which involves higher compensation. Perhaps technically, since he still had a seat, it's not denied boarding, but it's certainly worth more than the fare difference.
The relevant part is that the United staff specifically said he would be put in handcuffs if he didn't comply. That's the part to me that makes this fair game to bootstrap some attention from the other incident.
He doesn't appear to need the money: http://www.tripacificllc.com/team.html
Edit: Also, he has a JD from Stanford. Lol...United picked the wrong guy.
Your point #2 and #3 are valid.
I would be extremely annoyed if I were in the same situation as this flyer.
However, I'm not really sure what United is supposed to do here ... according to the article they had a mechanical problem with the original plane and the replacement plane had fewer first class seats ...
So somebody has to not fly in the first class seat.
Again, I would be very, very upset - but as an outsider looking in, it seems a bit childish and primitive to assume that whoever raced to the seat first gets to keep it, regardless of any other factors.
Again, United has to downgrade somebody to coach in this situation - it seems reasonable that they sort that downgrade to the lowest "status" passenger.
It isn't like a city bus where you can elbow your way to the front of the line and grab a seat. There's an assigned seating process that's 100% controlled by the airline. If they screw it up, that's on their heads.
It is an entirely reasonable expectation that once you've been issued a boarding pass, board the plane, put your bag up, belt in, and get a drink that you are sitting in that seat. There's nothing childish or primitive about having that expectation.
I saw duplicate assigned seats, I saw seats assigned in the toilet -- the plane had last row of ABC seats and lavatory where DEF seats would be. Sure enough two people show up with tickets in the DEF section. After some (weary) chuckles the folks just got squeezed into any open seats.
What is messed up about this case though was the lack of clear policy (so the person does not feel he is discriminated against), threats instead of apology and no compensation.
I am also surprised at the price: $1000 for a first class ticket on a long flight is low. Was that be one of the "gate upgrades" he purchased instead of the real first class ticket? This does not absolve United at all, but at least gives some potential sanity to their choice of a purchased seat over a gate upgrade.
The removal was awful, and they did deserve all the bad press. This article however is just trying to ride the wave to get some clicks.
There are millions of people who travel every day. Stuff like this must happen hundreds of times every day on pretty much every airline.
I think that's the problem.
"It’s always worth asking, do we own the process or does the process own us? In a Day 2 company, you might find it’s the second."
There were other misreportings as well, not to mention that some news outlets ran character assassination stories and almost nobody emphasised that Dr Dao was a senior.
The best piece I've seen deconstructing this is http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/04/united-passenger-remo...
You would walk up and down the aisle and punch out selected passengers. Once you had suitably subdued a passenger you click a security badge and the "Airport Rental Security" guys come and drag the passenger off.
The game timer would be a chart of United's share price. The round is over when the price hits zero.
The price could rise and fall with certain events:. A passenger stumbling back on the plane for instance.
The game would end immediately if you punched a baby - even United agents don't punch babies!
Feel free to run with it!!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/vr-game-voluntary-disemba...
I think I would rather interact with a robot than with a crew that has procedures so rigid (and dumb) that they are not allowed to have empathy.
I think that's sadly representative of the corporate mindset brought to the extreme. The consumer is not king anymore, it's a product. When did this start? I wonder.