United Airlines ( UAL)

[JSOP]

What airlines don't overbook? Not disputing your claim, just curious. If airlines did not book more than the airplane occupancy, there would be many empty seats. Empty seats means higher prices. The airline market is highly competitive and efficient. The market has indicated that it prioritizes price over other things. Your priorities might be different. UAL handled the situation wrong, should have just offered cash. Would be much cheaper than chartering a plane or taxi. Start with vouchers then go to cash if necessary. $2k cash would have done it easily. That's probably more than many of the passengers make in a week. Another way to handle it is sell some lower class of tickets that are much cheaper, but where passenger agrees to be placed on another flight within some window of time if necessary.

JetBlue for one, as they claim. I don't know any others. That's a job for Google search perhaps.

And now even the POTUS has spoken: There shouldn't be no ceiling to how high they can offer in cash incentives to entice volunteers in the situation of overbooked flights. So in the future, if they adopt this policy, it's going to be pretty fun. Everybody will be playing what's called the game of the Prisoner's Dilemma when enticing volunteers. If everybody holds out, the first person who volunteers will get a huge windfall of cash in incentives and the longer that everybody holds out, the larger the windfall but everyone else who didn't mind volunteering just lost out and gets $0. But if everybody who doesn't mind holding out tries to beat out everyone else and volunteers first, then the cash incentive will be very small.

 

[JSOP]

If he followed police orders, he would not have been harmed. He could have walked off the plane then taken United to court the next day. But because he acted how he did he'll now be able to get a better settlement than a free trip and some peanuts from UAL. I predict UAL will lose some business in the short-term, but most passengers only care about price. Those that leave permanently will be replaced by others seeking a lower fare. That's why stock not changed much.

Well you ABSOLUTELY correct! So don't be jealous and don't be sour, if you want a better settlement yourself next time, have the courage to do the right thing including standing up to authority like Dr. Dao did. It's because of Dr. Dao that we uncovered a lot of ugly truth that we would've otherwise never have been able to know and hopefully we will be empowered ourselves a bit more to be not treated like cargos by the airline industry and we are ALL going to get more than free trip and some peanuts from UAL in the future.

And just some background information for you. According to the press conference that was just given by the lawyer hired by Dr. Dao, they weren't supposed to be there and they were ALL instructed NEVER to use the force that they have utilized when no other passengers' lives or safety were jeopardized.

, so yeah in this case the "police" were in the WRONG. Yes in the interest of self-preservation, of course it would be more strategic to just obey the police and then air your grievance later but there are a few people like Dr. Dao who believes that if he's done nothing wrong, he should be able to continue what he's doing and the "police" who weren't supposed to be there in the first place should go away. And yes, for his brave action, in this case he will get a settlement, a generous settlement most likely for what he's been through, a severely broken nose, a concussion, beating to the sinus, loss of 2 front teeth and reconstructive surgeries and publicly humiliated in front of 200+ strangers and now around the world.

 

[OddTrader]

United Airlines staff 'forced frail grandma, 94, out of £2,800 Business seat into Economy for 16-hour flight'

The family of Paz Orquiza say she was left "in tears" because scandal-hit United staff wouldn't allow relatives to help her

13 APR 2017

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/united-airlines-staff-forced-frail-10216619

Pained: Orquiza (pictured on another day) had swollen legs and an aching body, and was left in tears, her family said. They said they had no problems on the initial flight from Australia to LA http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4409554/United-forced-arthritic-grandma-94-cramped-seat.html

 

[OddTrader]

United passenger threatened with handcuffs to make room for 'higher-priority' traveler

Geoff Fearns was threatened with being handcuffed when he refused to vacate his first-class seat on a United Airlines flight to Los Angeles

APRIL 11, 2017

http://www.latimes.com/business/laz...ed-low-priority-passenger-20170412-story.html

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. He had to fly to Hawaii last week for a business conference.

... ...


I asked if he’ll ever fly United again.

Fearns could only laugh. “Are you kidding?”

 

[luisHK]

That seems strange, that the staff wouldn t help the great grandma in business class, her needs were probably more than reclining her seat and opening the food .
It doesn t sound the greatest idea in the world to buy a J ticket for her while her daughter stays in coach on such a long haul.
So much worrying news come out of the US, especially travel related, I m surprised many people are still keen on visiting there.

 

[OddTrader]

https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/jokes-2.93321/page-1402#post-4442054

Recently, a large airline picked an AI software using big data analytics for selecting passengers according to its overbooking strategy.

In order to avoid any human bias, the AI software, rather than any crew members, is able to decide which passengers inside a plane shall be freely either moved from seating in first/second class to seating in economy class, or removed from seating in economy class to standing outside the plane, immediately.

A main criteria is to ensure a selected passenger will never make any booking again in the future with the same airline in her/his remaining life.

Of course, the AI software assumes that all airlines would carry out this same/similar strategy concurrently.

 

[OddTrader]

Bumped Delta passengers could get nearly $10,000 compensation

Associated Press

14 April 2017
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ssengers-could-get-nearly-10000-compensation/

Ben Schlappig, a travel blogger who first wrote about the Delta compensation increase, said it shows Delta is trying to reduce forced bumping. He said he couldn't imagine many situations in which people wouldn't jump at nearly $10,000.

Delta no doubt hopes that gate agents and their supervisors won't need to make maximum offers, and the financial cost to the airline is likely to be limited. If Delta paid $9,950 to every person it bumped involuntarily last year, that would total $12 million. Delta earned nearly $4.4 billion.

 

[JSOP]

Well they do have the choice of just not overbook, sell ONE ticket PER seat like all other venues like theatres, hotels (imagine hotels overbooking selling the same room to multiple different families), restaurants (imagine restaurants booking the same table to multiple different patrons or groups), sports stadiums and etc. These venues are all doing fine and there ARE airlines out there that don't overbook and they are surviving just fine.

So now it just comes down to which is more profitable: Overbook and then having to fork over $10K per passenger entice volunteering (and they might need to fork over more as I read from a website that as long as you don't cash the compensation cheque they gave you you can later on call their complaint department to negotiate for even BIGGER compensation) VS Not overbook and lose potential seat sale of what max. $3K - $5K roundtrip for Business Class on international flights.

 

[ET180]

JetBlue for one, as they claim. I don't know any others. That's a job for Google search perhaps.

And now even the POTUS has spoken: There shouldn't be no ceiling to how high they can offer in cash incentives to entice volunteers in the situation of overbooked flights. So in the future, if they adopt this policy, it's going to be pretty fun. Everybody will be playing what's called the game of the Prisoner's Dilemma when enticing volunteers. If everybody holds out, the first person who volunteers will get a huge windfall of cash in incentives and the longer that everybody holds out, the larger the windfall but everyone else who didn't mind volunteering just lost out and gets $0. But if everybody who doesn't mind holding out tries to beat out everyone else and volunteers first, then the cash incentive will be very small.

I think you would be surprised at how little United would have had to offer in actual cash and one night free hotel stay at a nearby airport with two-way Uber service to the hotel and back to the airport in order to get a couple of people off the flight. Would not have taken much at all. I know that Delta overbooks. They claimed yesterday that they can offer just under $10k in incentives to get people off a flight. Doubt they would rarely have to go beyond $600.

 

[JSOP]

I think you would be surprised at how little United would have had to offer in actual cash and one night free hotel stay at a nearby airport with two-way Uber service to the hotel and back to the airport in order to get a couple of people off the flight. Would not have taken much at all. I know that Delta overbooks. They claimed yesterday that they can offer just under $10k in incentives to get people off a flight. Doubt they would rarely have to go beyond $600.

True it might not be the actual amount that ends up being offered but it's just that the max. authorized amount has been increased now that they KNOW they are not allowed to use force to get ppl off the plane but they REALLY do need the seats.

Like I said before,

Everybody will be playing what's called the game of the Prisoner's Dilemma when enticing volunteers. If everybody holds out, the first person who volunteers will get a huge windfall of cash in incentives and the longer that everybody holds out, the larger the windfall but everyone else who didn't mind volunteering just lost out and got $0. But if everybody who doesn't mind holding out tries to beat out everyone else and volunteers first, then the cash incentive will be very small.

It'll be interesting to see how it panes out. Would passengers turn on each other to force people to volunteer and end up beating each other up because they are in a hurry? Or would everybody collude to hold out so to force the airline to raise the offer? How slow would the gate agent drag out the time between each offer?