6 ms·

He and the doctor may have a solid legal case: http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/ http://lawnewz.com/h

by paulgb 10y ago

He and the doctor may have a solid legal case: http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/ http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-... I hope for United's sake these are anomalies and not a pattern of behavior.

mpweiher 10y ago
> ...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-services/ https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser... This is a thing?!?
- RodericDay 10y ago
  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.
- shimon_e 10y ago
  Unfortunately, due to the economics of airline class[0], privileged passengers account for about 70% of airline revenue. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc
  - paulgb 10y ago
    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.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    This is the case in many industries. 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).
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    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". [1] https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-services/ https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser...
robotcookies 10y ago
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.

by paulgb 10y ago

mpweiher 10y ago

> ...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-services/ https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser... This is a thing?!?

RodericDay 10y ago
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.
shimon_e 10y ago
Unfortunately, due to the economics of airline class[0], privileged passengers account for about 70% of airline revenue. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc
- paulgb 10y ago
  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.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  This is the case in many industries. 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).
- mpweiher 10y ago
  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". [1] https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-services/ https://thepointsguy.com/2016/04/top-perks-united-global-ser...

robotcookies 10y ago

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.