3 ms·

No, it's not extortion, it's breach of contract. If he didn't' want to perform the contract, he shouldn't have taken it on. This is not a great example of anyt

No, it's not extortion, it's breach of contract. If he didn't' want to perform the contract, he shouldn't have taken it on. This is not a great example of anything else, despite your hyperbole.

jstanley 8y ago
Not everything needs to be a contract. Why can't we just pay our money, get our ticket, and then decide on our own whether we want to use it or not?
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >Not everything needs to be a contract... In that case, can the airline decide to simply not run the flight and keep everyone's money? It's a contract because both sides have accepted some number of terms. If it weren't you would forego all sorts of protections. When you (reasonably) want those back... guess what? Disputes are decided on the terms of the (sales) contract. How else would it work?
  - Rizz 8y ago
    That's what they already do, airlines will cancel your flight for any reason whatsoever: overbooking, finding a first class passenger who pays more, choosing not to have enough personnel on duty, etc. Until your plane with you on it is actually airborne, you have no idea whether or not you will be allowed to fly, so there is nothing unfair about not turning up for (what might be) your flight. Maybe if a ticket actually held some sort guarantee for getting a seat on an airplane things would be different...
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      >That's what they already do No they don't. They overbook to maximize profits, yes. It sucks and is completely anti-consumer, yes. However, they do not simply send you packing. They re-book you. You also agree to it when you buy the ticket. Again, yes, it's buried in the contract and since every airline does it you really have no choice. It's far from perfect/fair, but that has nothing to do with what I responded to. If "everything doesn't have to be a contract" then you have no legal recourse. Ever. Sales need to be contracts in the eyes of the law, but that doesn't mean everything is perfect.
      - ptero 8y ago
        Yes they do. At least in the US they will often cancel flights that end up mostly empty (they will certainly rebook those affected)
pkphilip 8y ago
Not really a problem. If the passenger decided not to fly the last leg, that seat would go empty but the airline won't lose money on that leg.. it has already been paid for. So there is no real loss to them.
themaninthedark 8y ago
So, when the inverse happens and an airline overbooks a flight and someone gets bumps that should also count as a breach of contract and all airlines should have to pay airfare plus compensation right? And this should apply to volunteers as well. Then we should also look at departure times, how often has a flight been delayed? Many people count on getting where they are going on time. That should also count as a breach of contract as well. Edit: To take this to the absurd, you have to pay to make any changes to your ticket at after a certain point in time i.e. name. So when you receive the ticket and it has a gate listed, is that also part of the contract? I am not allowed to change anything printed there without paying, why should they be allowed? Or do we say that things happen and we allow systems to be lenient?
- detaro 8y ago
  It should count as breach of contract if it's against a provision in the contract. If there's a provision for it in the contract, the next question is if it is valid or not (e.g. compensation for late flights is defined by laws in many places, so airlines can't just not offer it), which is where a law (or a different interpretation of existing law) restricting this would start.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
barrkel 8y ago
I think you're taking it too far. I agree that technically it's breach of contract. The trouble is that humans who aren't lawyers think of tickets as options instead of futures. They think they're buying the right to board instead of an obligation to board. I can also see the human-positive side effect. The marginal cost of an extra bum in a seat isn't high, so it makes sense to fill up the plane, but the economics only work out if there's enough people who pay more. There are lots of ways to differentiate between these sets of people - service levels, flexibility, calendar patterns. But the internet reduces the price information asymmetry that calendar patterns rely on, and so we've come to this court case: making it a hard constraint rather than hoodwinking the relatively price insensitive business traveller.

No, it's not extortion, it's breach of contract. If he didn't' want to perform the contract, he shouldn't have taken it on. This is not a great example of anything else, despite your hyperbole.

jstanley 8y ago

Not everything needs to be a contract. Why can't we just pay our money, get our ticket, and then decide on our own whether we want to use it or not?

EpicEng 8y ago
>Not everything needs to be a contract... In that case, can the airline decide to simply not run the flight and keep everyone's money? It's a contract because both sides have accepted some number of terms. If it weren't you would forego all sorts of protections. When you (reasonably) want those back... guess what? Disputes are decided on the terms of the (sales) contract. How else would it work?
- Rizz 8y ago
  That's what they already do, airlines will cancel your flight for any reason whatsoever: overbooking, finding a first class passenger who pays more, choosing not to have enough personnel on duty, etc. Until your plane with you on it is actually airborne, you have no idea whether or not you will be allowed to fly, so there is nothing unfair about not turning up for (what might be) your flight. Maybe if a ticket actually held some sort guarantee for getting a seat on an airplane things would be different...
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    >That's what they already do No they don't. They overbook to maximize profits, yes. It sucks and is completely anti-consumer, yes. However, they do not simply send you packing. They re-book you. You also agree to it when you buy the ticket. Again, yes, it's buried in the contract and since every airline does it you really have no choice. It's far from perfect/fair, but that has nothing to do with what I responded to. If "everything doesn't have to be a contract" then you have no legal recourse. Ever. Sales need to be contracts in the eyes of the law, but that doesn't mean everything is perfect.
    - ptero 8y ago
      Yes they do. At least in the US they will often cancel flights that end up mostly empty (they will certainly rebook those affected)

pkphilip 8y ago

Not really a problem. If the passenger decided not to fly the last leg, that seat would go empty but the airline won't lose money on that leg.. it has already been paid for. So there is no real loss to them.

themaninthedark 8y ago

So, when the inverse happens and an airline overbooks a flight and someone gets bumps that should also count as a breach of contract and all airlines should have to pay airfare plus compensation right? And this should apply to volunteers as well. Then we should also look at departure times, how often has a flight been delayed? Many people count on getting where they are going on time. That should also count as a breach of contract as well. Edit: To take this to the absurd, you have to pay to make any changes to your ticket at after a certain point in time i.e. name. So when you receive the ticket and it has a gate listed, is that also part of the contract? I am not allowed to change anything printed there without paying, why should they be allowed? Or do we say that things happen and we allow systems to be lenient?

detaro 8y ago
It should count as breach of contract if it's against a provision in the contract. If there's a provision for it in the contract, the next question is if it is valid or not (e.g. compensation for late flights is defined by laws in many places, so airlines can't just not offer it), which is where a law (or a different interpretation of existing law) restricting this would start.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

barrkel 8y ago

I think you're taking it too far. I agree that technically it's breach of contract. The trouble is that humans who aren't lawyers think of tickets as options instead of futures. They think they're buying the right to board instead of an obligation to board. I can also see the human-positive side effect. The marginal cost of an extra bum in a seat isn't high, so it makes sense to fill up the plane, but the economics only work out if there's enough people who pay more. There are lots of ways to differentiate between these sets of people - service levels, flexibility, calendar patterns. But the internet reduces the price information asymmetry that calendar patterns rely on, and so we've come to this court case: making it a hard constraint rather than hoodwinking the relatively price insensitive business traveller.