5 ms·

There is a law in the US that they are required to give you cash. However they will always ask if anyone wants to volunteer for a voucher first, and keep raisi

by dmoy 9y ago

There is a law in the US that they are required to give you cash. However they will always ask if anyone wants to volunteer for a voucher first, and keep raising the value of the voucher. If nobody takes it, whoever gets bumped gets cash. Usually that never happens. You can go to the faa website and read how much cash, it's some multiple of the ticket price.

mikeash 9y ago
That's not quite the same. Bumping people involuntarily and paying them the minimum cash required by law is how you end up with security beating people up to get them off the plane. I don't think that law should exist. They should be required to pay whatever it takes to get enough people to go willingly.
- bb611 9y ago
  The offered price of the bump wasn't the only failure, or even the most important failure, in that chain of events. Note that this behavior is extremely, unbelievably rare. N=1 over hundreds of millions of flights rare. There is a lot of other discontent regarding bumping on oversold flights, but the existence of a cash minimum doesn't by necessity lead to assaulting passengers.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I disagree. Their ability and willingness to remove people involuntarily creates an adversarial relationship where none needed to exist. Everything else flows from that. Yes, assault is super-rare in these cases, but unhappy passengers are fairly common. People hate the airlines for overbooking. If they always offered enough compensation for people to be willingly bumped, this wouldn't be the case.
- dmoy 9y ago
  The point is that they do offer enough to get people to bump voluntarily, and it doesn't include any cash like 90%+ of the time, because people are willing to accept travel voucher instead. If no such law exists, and everyone refuses up to like a million dollars, than what, the plane just sits there and nobody leaves? There should be some cap. Maybe it should be higher, but not unlimited. (I'd be more in favor of no overbooking at all honesty) The other part of the problem is lack of awareness. Most people in the US don't know you are legally entitled to cash if bumped involuntarily. If they knew, more would hold out for cash instead of vouchers.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    My point is that that remaining 10% of the time is some massive problem when there's a simple solution. Your hypothetical is silly. What if Jesus Christ descends from the heavens and declares air travel to be a mortal sin? That's about as likely. It's not going to be impossible to find a few people among 100+ who are willing to take the next flight for an amount of money that's at least vaguely reasonable. And if airlines don't want to risk it, they always have the option of not overbooking. This way it's their choice how to handle it.
    - dmoy 9y ago
      No the remaining 10%* of a time it's also not a massive problem, they hand over cash and someone is really pissed. The United thing happens when they let someone board first that they shouldn't have, and then tried to haul him off. We can argue that the cash offer should be higher, but when was the last time you even saw the voucher bids go up past a thousand dollars and then get replaced by cash? I'm guessing never since you didn't even know it was the law. I've never seen it, only increasingly high voucher offers. * Also it's not 10%, it's like 1 in 100000 passengers.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        "I'm guessing never since you didn't even know it was the law." Assumes facts not in evidence. I'm well aware of the law. I'm also well aware that the law specifies a pretty low cap on what airlines are required to give. Offering people worthless vouchers and then bumping people involuntarily for a mere 4x their fare for that segment is very much not what I was referring to in my original comment.
        dmoy 9y ago
        Ok my apologies for the assumption then. But then I'm confused, is the complaint that for the 0.001% of passengers, they should get higher cash compensation? Because the other 99.999% of passengers either board without issue or take vouchers.
- rlpb 9y ago
  > They should be required to pay whatever it takes to get enough people to go willingly. Let's say this suggestion was implemented in law. In civil law, they could always breach their contract with you, and refuse you boarding anyway. You'd then sue them and be awarded damages because they breached their contract with you. But it'd cost you a ton of money to do that, and so nobody will do this. The law that sets the compensation amount shortcuts this and gives you the money more directly. "Be required to pay whatever it takes" is the default position of a contract. If you want to return to that, you'll be stuck with the situation above. You could instead increase the statutory compensation amount. Then they'd be in an reverse auction situation. They'd rarely need to force anyone off because some passenger will cave sooner for the money. In other words, you'll get what you want if you increase the statutory compensation amount, but you won't if you eliminate it as you suggest.
  - opo 9y ago
    >...You'd then sue them and be awarded damages because they breached their contract with you. But it'd cost you a ton of money to do that, and so nobody will do this. The limit on small claims court is usually 5 thousand and small claims court doesn't cost a "ton of money" and is very accessible. Since anyone could be bumped, there are cases where I am sure the damages would be greater than 5 thousand, but then you would have the incentive and means to hire a lawyer. The law to set up compensation limits in the US was done to lower the costs to the airlines, not as some way to help the consumer. There is no reason that anyone should ever be involuntarily bumped - this law just made people think this was somehow acceptable.
    - rlpb 9y ago
      > The limit on small claims court is usually 5 thousand and small claims court doesn't cost a "ton of money" and is very accessible. You risk being awarded just a refund of the ticket, which I'm sure that United would offer anyway. And then you'd be down court fees and perhaps loss of earnings for a day to attend court. It's not worth it for ordinary people. > The law to set up compensation limits in the US was done to lower the costs to the airlines, not as some way to help the consumer. Overbooking lowers ticket prices. Lowering costs to airlines lowers ticket prices.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  "I don't think that law should exist. They should be required to pay whatever it takes to get enough people to go willingly." Agreed. That would be the "free market". They always would find people if they offered enough money.

by dmoy 9y ago

mikeash 9y ago

That's not quite the same. Bumping people involuntarily and paying them the minimum cash required by law is how you end up with security beating people up to get them off the plane. I don't think that law should exist. They should be required to pay whatever it takes to get enough people to go willingly.

bb611 9y ago
The offered price of the bump wasn't the only failure, or even the most important failure, in that chain of events. Note that this behavior is extremely, unbelievably rare. N=1 over hundreds of millions of flights rare. There is a lot of other discontent regarding bumping on oversold flights, but the existence of a cash minimum doesn't by necessity lead to assaulting passengers.
- mikeash 9y ago
  I disagree. Their ability and willingness to remove people involuntarily creates an adversarial relationship where none needed to exist. Everything else flows from that. Yes, assault is super-rare in these cases, but unhappy passengers are fairly common. People hate the airlines for overbooking. If they always offered enough compensation for people to be willingly bumped, this wouldn't be the case.
dmoy 9y ago
The point is that they do offer enough to get people to bump voluntarily, and it doesn't include any cash like 90%+ of the time, because people are willing to accept travel voucher instead. If no such law exists, and everyone refuses up to like a million dollars, than what, the plane just sits there and nobody leaves? There should be some cap. Maybe it should be higher, but not unlimited. (I'd be more in favor of no overbooking at all honesty) The other part of the problem is lack of awareness. Most people in the US don't know you are legally entitled to cash if bumped involuntarily. If they knew, more would hold out for cash instead of vouchers.
- mikeash 9y ago
  My point is that that remaining 10% of the time is some massive problem when there's a simple solution. Your hypothetical is silly. What if Jesus Christ descends from the heavens and declares air travel to be a mortal sin? That's about as likely. It's not going to be impossible to find a few people among 100+ who are willing to take the next flight for an amount of money that's at least vaguely reasonable. And if airlines don't want to risk it, they always have the option of not overbooking. This way it's their choice how to handle it.
  - dmoy 9y ago
    No the remaining 10%* of a time it's also not a massive problem, they hand over cash and someone is really pissed. The United thing happens when they let someone board first that they shouldn't have, and then tried to haul him off. We can argue that the cash offer should be higher, but when was the last time you even saw the voucher bids go up past a thousand dollars and then get replaced by cash? I'm guessing never since you didn't even know it was the law. I've never seen it, only increasingly high voucher offers. * Also it's not 10%, it's like 1 in 100000 passengers.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      "I'm guessing never since you didn't even know it was the law." Assumes facts not in evidence. I'm well aware of the law. I'm also well aware that the law specifies a pretty low cap on what airlines are required to give. Offering people worthless vouchers and then bumping people involuntarily for a mere 4x their fare for that segment is very much not what I was referring to in my original comment.
      - dmoy 9y ago
        Ok my apologies for the assumption then. But then I'm confused, is the complaint that for the 0.001% of passengers, they should get higher cash compensation? Because the other 99.999% of passengers either board without issue or take vouchers.
rlpb 9y ago
> They should be required to pay whatever it takes to get enough people to go willingly. Let's say this suggestion was implemented in law. In civil law, they could always breach their contract with you, and refuse you boarding anyway. You'd then sue them and be awarded damages because they breached their contract with you. But it'd cost you a ton of money to do that, and so nobody will do this. The law that sets the compensation amount shortcuts this and gives you the money more directly. "Be required to pay whatever it takes" is the default position of a contract. If you want to return to that, you'll be stuck with the situation above. You could instead increase the statutory compensation amount. Then they'd be in an reverse auction situation. They'd rarely need to force anyone off because some passenger will cave sooner for the money. In other words, you'll get what you want if you increase the statutory compensation amount, but you won't if you eliminate it as you suggest.
- opo 9y ago
  >...You'd then sue them and be awarded damages because they breached their contract with you. But it'd cost you a ton of money to do that, and so nobody will do this. The limit on small claims court is usually 5 thousand and small claims court doesn't cost a "ton of money" and is very accessible. Since anyone could be bumped, there are cases where I am sure the damages would be greater than 5 thousand, but then you would have the incentive and means to hire a lawyer. The law to set up compensation limits in the US was done to lower the costs to the airlines, not as some way to help the consumer. There is no reason that anyone should ever be involuntarily bumped - this law just made people think this was somehow acceptable.
  - rlpb 9y ago
    > The limit on small claims court is usually 5 thousand and small claims court doesn't cost a "ton of money" and is very accessible. You risk being awarded just a refund of the ticket, which I'm sure that United would offer anyway. And then you'd be down court fees and perhaps loss of earnings for a day to attend court. It's not worth it for ordinary people. > The law to set up compensation limits in the US was done to lower the costs to the airlines, not as some way to help the consumer. Overbooking lowers ticket prices. Lowering costs to airlines lowers ticket prices.
maxxxxx 9y ago
"I don't think that law should exist. They should be required to pay whatever it takes to get enough people to go willingly." Agreed. That would be the "free market". They always would find people if they offered enough money.