9 ms·

I worry that this would essentially make it easier for airlines to drop passengers in the long run. Right now if your EU flight is cancelled you're entitled to

by ginko 4y ago

I worry that this would essentially make it easier for airlines to drop passengers in the long run. Right now if your EU flight is cancelled you're entitled to a monetary compensation[1] on top getting your ticket money back. I worry that letting the airlines simply not charge you will allow them to wiggle out of this, or make the process to get it even more Byzantine than it already is. [1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm#compensation-cancellation https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...

kashkhan 4y ago
Actually the opposite might happen. Airlines would keep empty seats to sell at a premium at last moment. A business that rejects customers willing to pay top dollar is suboptimal. The startegy today is to make artificial scarcity. If the customer has more power the strategy changes.
- Arnt 4y ago
  Airlines keep seats to sell at the last moment now.
  - karatinversion 4y ago
    I thought they famously did the opposite of this by overbooking flights
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      That's relatively rarer in Europe compared to USA.
      - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
        Don't know for all europe, but air france overbook all the flights Source: my father was working with the CEO.
    - Arnt 4y ago
      Both happen. Keeping seats happens more often in Europe. I flew Munich-Oslo yesterday. Look at the prices for that route for later today, for next week and for next month. The seats are the same on most of the aircraft, the available business class you see is just regular seats being kept free for expensive tickets. And when the search engine says "4 seats are left at this price", that means that the airline is keeping some to sell at higher prices.
    - tomschwiha 4y ago
      Which sometimes causes that you are upgraded for free. ;)
- danielfoster 4y ago
  Interestingly airlines already do this. When airlines ask for volunteers to take the next flight, it could due to a range of factors but last-minute business travel is one. They will absolutely sell a last-minute ticket for $2,000 to a business traveler when the flight is already overbooked, then offer someone $1,000 to take another flight. Usually everyone is satisfied and the airline profits.
  - jdhzzz 4y ago
    If it were the US they could just seize the cheap ticket and resell it for more per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London.
    - happyopossum 4y ago
      I’m assuming this is a joke, but if not - that’s not how Kelo worked. Kelo is bad law, and a horrible court decision, but it doesn’t mean any private company can just take your stuff…
- mike_hock 4y ago
  Considering the carbon footprint of air travel, empty seats is decidedly not what we should want.
Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
Yes, my thought was the same. Currently if an airline drops you, demanding compensation is a cumbersome process but you can get it. So, e.g., if a flight was booked by too few passengers, the airline has an incentive to still honor the booking. With this system they might as well say "today numbers don't add up so we just don't fly", and cancel with any excuse.
- Arnt 4y ago
  That's not actually different from today. In both cases the airline has a contract with each of its passengers. The contract allows cancellation on terms specified in the contract, and requires payment on the due date, also specified. The airline has a duty to fulfil the contract once it has entered into the contract. That duty applies both before and after the payment due date (or payment dates, in many contract).
  - eru 4y ago
    Exactly. And airlines and passengers should be allowed to pick the contract that most suites them. Instead of the government picking the 'one best' contract. One size fits none.
    - Arnt 4y ago
      Germany already has a number of restrictions on contracts with regular people (corporations and certain persons are expected to look out for themselves). For example, phone sales can't be final at that time, there has to be a 14-day grace period starting from when the purchase agreement is accessible to both parties (IIRC). Mail-order vendors have to accept returns on most kinds of goods, by law not by convention. Warranties cannot be shorter than a specified limit. Apartment rental contracts cannot ban having children, and so on and so forth. The restrictions are real, even if most of a typical contract is still free to design and write by the parties. This suggested change isn't larger than many of those, or groundbreaking. It's just another one like those.
      - 4y ago
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
But even though payment has not yet been finalized, you HAVE engaged in a contract with this airline. If airlines start cancelling flights maliciously, they'll be in a lot of trouble. And even if they're not malicious. A bus company in my country got fined (or, denied millions in subsidies) because they didn't meet their target of bus routes / bus lines (they get subsidies to drive routes that don't pay for themselves). They couldn't get enough bus drivers due to the Panny-D and everything else going on.
- pelasaco 4y ago
  the contract can be extended with a "booking confirmation just after payment is completed" and done, they can cancel your family Christmas together.
eru 4y ago
I'd say airlines should use whatever model they want, as long as they clearly communicate what their policies are. If you want to overbook like crazy and bump passengers off the plane, you should be free to try that. It's a free market, and no one is forced to fly with you.
- AlecSchueler 4y ago
  It's a highly regulated market that seeks to protect the interests of customers in the EU.
- wwosik 4y ago
  that's a crazy take, consequences of a person being bumped off the plane is dramatically higher for the person than for the airline
  - FabHK 4y ago
    It is not a crazy take. Both the number of passengers arriving for a particular flight and the number of seats available on a given flight is basically stochastic. It is good and proper that airlines optimise for the maximum revenue (after some compensation for bumped passengers) and in particular the maximum number of people flown, even if that entails overbooking. (Without overbooking, more planes (with more empty seats) would have to fly to transport the same number of people - why would anyone want that?) Furthermore, a flight might be cancelled for any number of legitimate reasons (weather, strike, technical problems, crew limitations, change in government rules, etc.). A flight is not like a car trip (even though the aviation industry has been so spectacularly successful in delivering safe and reliable flights that people often forget that). It is foolish, in my view, to rely on making any given flight.
  - eru 4y ago
    So? You can start an airline that doesn't bump anyone off, and charge more money for that service, if you think that's what customers want.
- n0tth3dro1ds 4y ago
  >It’s a free market Commercial aviation? Good one. When’s the next bailout?
mihaaly 4y ago
The compensation seems to depend on having a ticket (entering into a 'contract' to provide/use a service) and not on the actual date of monetary transaction. Which shifts to check in time from booking time. Compensation for cancellation less that 14 days prior to delivery may still be in place, only the refund could be spared if cancellation happens before check in. There are pre-, on-time-, post- payment services out there working with various obligations to handle exceptions.
wheels 4y ago
I was one of the folks hit by the massive cancellations in Germany this summer. I'd love this new suggestion. My flight was canceled a month and 5 days ago. It was to the US and Canada, was canceled 22 hours in advance, and would have been my first time to see my family since the pandemic – more than 3 years. I spent 3 hours on the phone with the airline trying to find a way to my destination. In the end they offered me nothing. I filed for a refund, and the statutory compensation on the day of my cancellation. I haven't received either. The airline has ignored my dispute filing, and the website where I booked hasn't processed the refund. A week ago, I filed a chargeback with my credit card. I haven't received any info on that. Two days ago, I had to spend the time hiring a legal service which processes the statutory EU compensation, but they'll take a third of what I'm due (€600 of the €1800), and say it'll take 2-3 months. The current system does not work. Even if I do in the end get my refund and compensation, I'll come out roughly break-even on costs, lost my summer vacation, and will be down a dozen hours of effort.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- clipper_janosch 4y ago
  You should get your full ticket back + the EU compensation - 1/3. No worries, I did this a few years back and the process took a while but I got the money. Also, the EU compensation is rather handsome, especially on a long flight like that, you mention 1800 EUR, how much was the ticket originally?
  - wheels 4y ago
    My flights were for me and my kids. Total of €2700. One of the flights was booked separately (because booking together didn't work on any of the websites I tried), though also American Airlines, and I won't get a refund on that. The €1200 that I'll get will only cover the extra missed flight, and my Airbnb. And that doesn't scratch that I had to find new summer vacation plans with my kids on one day's notice. That is not no worries.
    - 4y ago
ysavir 4y ago
What's preventing legislation that would keep the same compensation package for cancellation? That the customer did or did not pay in advance doesn't have to impact that.
- pelasaco 4y ago
  "The advantages of a PAYF model for corporate travel managers, as BTN Europe previously reported, include not having to chase refunds or pay a TMC to manage this process. There’s also a reduced risk of losing money to airline bankruptcies." sounds for me that it won't, but again, it's talking just about business customers, right?
suction 4y ago
> I worry that this would essentially make it easier for airlines to drop passengers in the long run. That should be easy to prevent. It has to be designed so the airline (i.e. the party that holds all the power in this contractual agreement) cannot cancel the contract, but the customer's money can only be collected the moment the flight touches ground on the destination. Like a reserved amount on a credit card that car rentals use. Flights are already "connected", it should be easy to auto-bill once the destination has been successfully reached.

by ginko 4y ago

kashkhan 4y ago

Actually the opposite might happen. Airlines would keep empty seats to sell at a premium at last moment. A business that rejects customers willing to pay top dollar is suboptimal. The startegy today is to make artificial scarcity. If the customer has more power the strategy changes.

Arnt 4y ago
Airlines keep seats to sell at the last moment now.
- karatinversion 4y ago
  I thought they famously did the opposite of this by overbooking flights
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    That's relatively rarer in Europe compared to USA.
    - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      Don't know for all europe, but air france overbook all the flights Source: my father was working with the CEO.
  - Arnt 4y ago
    Both happen. Keeping seats happens more often in Europe. I flew Munich-Oslo yesterday. Look at the prices for that route for later today, for next week and for next month. The seats are the same on most of the aircraft, the available business class you see is just regular seats being kept free for expensive tickets. And when the search engine says "4 seats are left at this price", that means that the airline is keeping some to sell at higher prices.
  - tomschwiha 4y ago
    Which sometimes causes that you are upgraded for free. ;)
danielfoster 4y ago
Interestingly airlines already do this. When airlines ask for volunteers to take the next flight, it could due to a range of factors but last-minute business travel is one. They will absolutely sell a last-minute ticket for $2,000 to a business traveler when the flight is already overbooked, then offer someone $1,000 to take another flight. Usually everyone is satisfied and the airline profits.
- jdhzzz 4y ago
  If it were the US they could just seize the cheap ticket and resell it for more per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London.
  - happyopossum 4y ago
    I’m assuming this is a joke, but if not - that’s not how Kelo worked. Kelo is bad law, and a horrible court decision, but it doesn’t mean any private company can just take your stuff…
mike_hock 4y ago
Considering the carbon footprint of air travel, empty seats is decidedly not what we should want.

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago

Yes, my thought was the same. Currently if an airline drops you, demanding compensation is a cumbersome process but you can get it. So, e.g., if a flight was booked by too few passengers, the airline has an incentive to still honor the booking. With this system they might as well say "today numbers don't add up so we just don't fly", and cancel with any excuse.

Arnt 4y ago
That's not actually different from today. In both cases the airline has a contract with each of its passengers. The contract allows cancellation on terms specified in the contract, and requires payment on the due date, also specified. The airline has a duty to fulfil the contract once it has entered into the contract. That duty applies both before and after the payment due date (or payment dates, in many contract).
- eru 4y ago
  Exactly. And airlines and passengers should be allowed to pick the contract that most suites them. Instead of the government picking the 'one best' contract. One size fits none.
  - Arnt 4y ago
    Germany already has a number of restrictions on contracts with regular people (corporations and certain persons are expected to look out for themselves). For example, phone sales can't be final at that time, there has to be a 14-day grace period starting from when the purchase agreement is accessible to both parties (IIRC). Mail-order vendors have to accept returns on most kinds of goods, by law not by convention. Warranties cannot be shorter than a specified limit. Apartment rental contracts cannot ban having children, and so on and so forth. The restrictions are real, even if most of a typical contract is still free to design and write by the parties. This suggested change isn't larger than many of those, or groundbreaking. It's just another one like those.
    - 4y ago

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

But even though payment has not yet been finalized, you HAVE engaged in a contract with this airline. If airlines start cancelling flights maliciously, they'll be in a lot of trouble. And even if they're not malicious. A bus company in my country got fined (or, denied millions in subsidies) because they didn't meet their target of bus routes / bus lines (they get subsidies to drive routes that don't pay for themselves). They couldn't get enough bus drivers due to the Panny-D and everything else going on.

pelasaco 4y ago
the contract can be extended with a "booking confirmation just after payment is completed" and done, they can cancel your family Christmas together.

eru 4y ago

I'd say airlines should use whatever model they want, as long as they clearly communicate what their policies are. If you want to overbook like crazy and bump passengers off the plane, you should be free to try that. It's a free market, and no one is forced to fly with you.

AlecSchueler 4y ago
It's a highly regulated market that seeks to protect the interests of customers in the EU.
wwosik 4y ago
that's a crazy take, consequences of a person being bumped off the plane is dramatically higher for the person than for the airline
- FabHK 4y ago
  It is not a crazy take. Both the number of passengers arriving for a particular flight and the number of seats available on a given flight is basically stochastic. It is good and proper that airlines optimise for the maximum revenue (after some compensation for bumped passengers) and in particular the maximum number of people flown, even if that entails overbooking. (Without overbooking, more planes (with more empty seats) would have to fly to transport the same number of people - why would anyone want that?) Furthermore, a flight might be cancelled for any number of legitimate reasons (weather, strike, technical problems, crew limitations, change in government rules, etc.). A flight is not like a car trip (even though the aviation industry has been so spectacularly successful in delivering safe and reliable flights that people often forget that). It is foolish, in my view, to rely on making any given flight.
- eru 4y ago
  So? You can start an airline that doesn't bump anyone off, and charge more money for that service, if you think that's what customers want.
n0tth3dro1ds 4y ago
>It’s a free market Commercial aviation? Good one. When’s the next bailout?

mihaaly 4y ago

The compensation seems to depend on having a ticket (entering into a 'contract' to provide/use a service) and not on the actual date of monetary transaction. Which shifts to check in time from booking time. Compensation for cancellation less that 14 days prior to delivery may still be in place, only the refund could be spared if cancellation happens before check in. There are pre-, on-time-, post- payment services out there working with various obligations to handle exceptions.

wheels 4y ago

I was one of the folks hit by the massive cancellations in Germany this summer. I'd love this new suggestion. My flight was canceled a month and 5 days ago. It was to the US and Canada, was canceled 22 hours in advance, and would have been my first time to see my family since the pandemic – more than 3 years. I spent 3 hours on the phone with the airline trying to find a way to my destination. In the end they offered me nothing. I filed for a refund, and the statutory compensation on the day of my cancellation. I haven't received either. The airline has ignored my dispute filing, and the website where I booked hasn't processed the refund. A week ago, I filed a chargeback with my credit card. I haven't received any info on that. Two days ago, I had to spend the time hiring a legal service which processes the statutory EU compensation, but they'll take a third of what I'm due (€600 of the €1800), and say it'll take 2-3 months. The current system does not work. Even if I do in the end get my refund and compensation, I'll come out roughly break-even on costs, lost my summer vacation, and will be down a dozen hours of effort.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
clipper_janosch 4y ago
You should get your full ticket back + the EU compensation - 1/3. No worries, I did this a few years back and the process took a while but I got the money. Also, the EU compensation is rather handsome, especially on a long flight like that, you mention 1800 EUR, how much was the ticket originally?
- wheels 4y ago
  My flights were for me and my kids. Total of €2700. One of the flights was booked separately (because booking together didn't work on any of the websites I tried), though also American Airlines, and I won't get a refund on that. The €1200 that I'll get will only cover the extra missed flight, and my Airbnb. And that doesn't scratch that I had to find new summer vacation plans with my kids on one day's notice. That is not no worries.
  - 4y ago

ysavir 4y ago

What's preventing legislation that would keep the same compensation package for cancellation? That the customer did or did not pay in advance doesn't have to impact that.

pelasaco 4y ago
"The advantages of a PAYF model for corporate travel managers, as BTN Europe previously reported, include not having to chase refunds or pay a TMC to manage this process. There’s also a reduced risk of losing money to airline bankruptcies." sounds for me that it won't, but again, it's talking just about business customers, right?

suction 4y ago

> I worry that this would essentially make it easier for airlines to drop passengers in the long run. That should be easy to prevent. It has to be designed so the airline (i.e. the party that holds all the power in this contractual agreement) cannot cancel the contract, but the customer's money can only be collected the moment the flight touches ground on the destination. Like a reserved amount on a credit card that car rentals use. Flights are already "connected", it should be easy to auto-bill once the destination has been successfully reached.