4 ms·

Airlines are lying, bait-and-switching pieces of shit and the flying experience gets worse every year, so the only thing that's surprising is that there aren't

Airlines are lying, bait-and-switching pieces of shit and the flying experience gets worse every year, so the only thing that's surprising is that there aren't way more of these incidents

wkat4242 3y ago
They are yes but that doesn't justify taking it out on their employees. They're just in the same boat as we are. And with airlines like Ryanair, when you want something just pay for it. Seat selection, carryon etc. It's still cheaper than a traditional airline. When you follow their rules you won't have issues.
- carlmr 3y ago
  >They are yes but that doesn't justify taking it out on their employees. It's not rational, but humans aren't rational. And sadly if somebody is angry and the culprit isn't present, they will be angry at the nearest human they deem at least slightly responsible. In this case the airline employees.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    It's not unreasonable to expect that the human agents of the airline have power to affect the behavior of the airline. Today's employees are also victims of the same spreadsheet-minmaxxed policy-computer-mediated-system as the passengers, but this doesn't actually erase that fundamental dynamic. It just makes for the age old setup where capital puts humans in a captive zero-sum situation to fight it out amongst themselves while it pulls the strings to invisibly extract the most value.
- wjnc 3y ago
  The amount of people (willfully?) trying to haggle with Ryanair is probably the most detrimental to their experience. My latest flight about 40% (yes, I’m counting) of the waits were for people discussing non-booked preferences (suitcases, seats, priority). They should accept any customer wish (except seating) and charge afterwards. That would be great. “Oh here we see you had a overhead and stood in the priority lane. That’ll be € 400 extra.” Off course their pricing is obnoxious, intransparant and pretty much in opposite of good customer service, but that is their good right. They fly safe, on time and have the best network.
  - makingstuffs 3y ago
    One thing I am guilty of is trying to get an extra legroom seat for free. I’m 6ft5 and feel like my choice is between being forced to pay for something which I cannot help or be placed in a seat which is so small I end up damaging body. However, this is usually something which takes up a few seconds of me just asking and moving on if they can’t. While I have no data and this is just logical assessment I’d bet a lot of reason for the increase in these incidents is the way in which airlines have drastically increased fares and lowered services since the pandemic. Since the pandemic airfares have doubled across the board and, with that, things like a complimentary checkin bag on an 8 hour flight have been removed. Atop of that other complimentary things such as alcoholic drinks and meals have also been removed from many airlines. All the while operators have been implementing algorithms which force you to pay to sit next to the person with whom you are travelling. It’s not an excuse for people to start abusing staff as that is unacceptable no matter the reasoning. Just trying to add some perspective
    - wjnc 3y ago
      I feel for you (6ft2 myself and I fit exactly) and other customer irritations as well. When I first flew thirty years ago (getting older here) it was half a monthly average paycheck for one kid Amsterdam - US. I remember, since I had to do chores and save my allowance for half the ticket. Currently I fly five pax Amsterdam - Spain on a holiday for not even a third of an average paycheck. People got richer and flying got massively more efficient. We are just undergoing the pains of how to treat flying like trains or buses where the individual passenger is not the primary customer. (This is only relatable for people in places with working mass transit. Obviously you are the customer, but the timetable and procedures couldn’t care. It’s the bureaucratic approach to business. The free drinks and suitcases in legacy flying are another model, that incidentally failed on shorter flights.)
  - malux85 3y ago
    So financially incentivise the airline to make their processes unclear so the customer accidentally spends a bunch more? Sounds like that would cause more rage.
- andrei_says_ 3y ago
  High levels of cortisol and adrenaline impede reasoning - so passengers lash out at whoever/whatever is available at the moment.
FreakyT 3y ago
> the flying experience gets worse every year People always say this, but I haven't seen any evidence that it's true. In my view, the flying experience at least in the US has actually gotten better over the last few years. United, for example, added free seatback IFEs. (About 10 or so years ago, you had to swipe a credit card to watch anything.)
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  I don't know how long you've been flying or what airlines you use, but the situation was very different pre-9/11. 2 checked bags and seat selections were free, you could walk/pick up family at the gate, and onerous security checkpoints weren't a thing. More importantly, seats had more room. Sure, you had to read skymall instead of watching a movie during the flight, but tablets didn't exist yet so we didn't know better. Qualitatively the situation is worse today, even if the difference is usually exaggerated.
  - FreakyT 3y ago
    Parent comment asserted that "flying gets worse every year", which is a very different declaration than "flying got significantly worse after 9/11"
    - AlotOfReading 3y ago
      Other than the security checkpoints, all of that happened incrementally over time. 9/11 is just a convenient before/after for the airline industry.
    - tinus_hn 3y ago
      It got worse after the shoe bomber and then worse again when the airports found out they could make more money selling water after security by only having ‘convenience’ warm water in the toilets. The nickel-and-diming continues.
- appplication 3y ago
  This is not just post 9/11. Airlines have been cramming more seats onto planes[1], the quality of the seats has been going down. There didn’t used to be a single airline that had no-recline seats, now there are many. Charging for carry on or forgoing drink service to save money also wasn’t a thing until a few years ago, now it’s everywhere. Airlines are pushing people as far as they can in order to maximize cash extraction. It’s no surprise more people are snapping. [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-08-11/airlines-have-been-shrinking-seats https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-08-11/airlines-h...
pohl 3y ago
Which part of that is grounds for assault?
- cainxinth 3y ago
  None of them, but I don’t think those are being offered as justifications for violence, but to help explain the rise in prevalence. If you cram more and more people into smaller and smaller spaces, opportunities for conflict are going to increase. Personally, though, I think it’s more a matter of air travel becoming more accessible. Air traffic doubled in the last two decades. There used to be a lot fewer people flying because there weren’t as many routes and low cost options.
PeterStuer 3y ago
True. And add to that a massive dose of unchecked entitlement and endemic main character syndrome on the part of the passengers and you get this explosive coctail.
- black_13 3y ago
  [dead]

Airlines are lying, bait-and-switching pieces of shit and the flying experience gets worse every year, so the only thing that's surprising is that there aren't way more of these incidents

wkat4242 3y ago

They are yes but that doesn't justify taking it out on their employees. They're just in the same boat as we are. And with airlines like Ryanair, when you want something just pay for it. Seat selection, carryon etc. It's still cheaper than a traditional airline. When you follow their rules you won't have issues.

carlmr 3y ago
>They are yes but that doesn't justify taking it out on their employees. It's not rational, but humans aren't rational. And sadly if somebody is angry and the culprit isn't present, they will be angry at the nearest human they deem at least slightly responsible. In this case the airline employees.
- mindslight 3y ago
  It's not unreasonable to expect that the human agents of the airline have power to affect the behavior of the airline. Today's employees are also victims of the same spreadsheet-minmaxxed policy-computer-mediated-system as the passengers, but this doesn't actually erase that fundamental dynamic. It just makes for the age old setup where capital puts humans in a captive zero-sum situation to fight it out amongst themselves while it pulls the strings to invisibly extract the most value.
wjnc 3y ago
The amount of people (willfully?) trying to haggle with Ryanair is probably the most detrimental to their experience. My latest flight about 40% (yes, I’m counting) of the waits were for people discussing non-booked preferences (suitcases, seats, priority). They should accept any customer wish (except seating) and charge afterwards. That would be great. “Oh here we see you had a overhead and stood in the priority lane. That’ll be € 400 extra.” Off course their pricing is obnoxious, intransparant and pretty much in opposite of good customer service, but that is their good right. They fly safe, on time and have the best network.
- makingstuffs 3y ago
  One thing I am guilty of is trying to get an extra legroom seat for free. I’m 6ft5 and feel like my choice is between being forced to pay for something which I cannot help or be placed in a seat which is so small I end up damaging body. However, this is usually something which takes up a few seconds of me just asking and moving on if they can’t. While I have no data and this is just logical assessment I’d bet a lot of reason for the increase in these incidents is the way in which airlines have drastically increased fares and lowered services since the pandemic. Since the pandemic airfares have doubled across the board and, with that, things like a complimentary checkin bag on an 8 hour flight have been removed. Atop of that other complimentary things such as alcoholic drinks and meals have also been removed from many airlines. All the while operators have been implementing algorithms which force you to pay to sit next to the person with whom you are travelling. It’s not an excuse for people to start abusing staff as that is unacceptable no matter the reasoning. Just trying to add some perspective
  - wjnc 3y ago
    I feel for you (6ft2 myself and I fit exactly) and other customer irritations as well. When I first flew thirty years ago (getting older here) it was half a monthly average paycheck for one kid Amsterdam - US. I remember, since I had to do chores and save my allowance for half the ticket. Currently I fly five pax Amsterdam - Spain on a holiday for not even a third of an average paycheck. People got richer and flying got massively more efficient. We are just undergoing the pains of how to treat flying like trains or buses where the individual passenger is not the primary customer. (This is only relatable for people in places with working mass transit. Obviously you are the customer, but the timetable and procedures couldn’t care. It’s the bureaucratic approach to business. The free drinks and suitcases in legacy flying are another model, that incidentally failed on shorter flights.)
- malux85 3y ago
  So financially incentivise the airline to make their processes unclear so the customer accidentally spends a bunch more? Sounds like that would cause more rage.
andrei_says_ 3y ago
High levels of cortisol and adrenaline impede reasoning - so passengers lash out at whoever/whatever is available at the moment.

FreakyT 3y ago

> the flying experience gets worse every year People always say this, but I haven't seen any evidence that it's true. In my view, the flying experience at least in the US has actually gotten better over the last few years. United, for example, added free seatback IFEs. (About 10 or so years ago, you had to swipe a credit card to watch anything.)

AlotOfReading 3y ago
I don't know how long you've been flying or what airlines you use, but the situation was very different pre-9/11. 2 checked bags and seat selections were free, you could walk/pick up family at the gate, and onerous security checkpoints weren't a thing. More importantly, seats had more room. Sure, you had to read skymall instead of watching a movie during the flight, but tablets didn't exist yet so we didn't know better. Qualitatively the situation is worse today, even if the difference is usually exaggerated.
- FreakyT 3y ago
  Parent comment asserted that "flying gets worse every year", which is a very different declaration than "flying got significantly worse after 9/11"
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Other than the security checkpoints, all of that happened incrementally over time. 9/11 is just a convenient before/after for the airline industry.
  - tinus_hn 3y ago
    It got worse after the shoe bomber and then worse again when the airports found out they could make more money selling water after security by only having ‘convenience’ warm water in the toilets. The nickel-and-diming continues.
appplication 3y ago
This is not just post 9/11. Airlines have been cramming more seats onto planes[1], the quality of the seats has been going down. There didn’t used to be a single airline that had no-recline seats, now there are many. Charging for carry on or forgoing drink service to save money also wasn’t a thing until a few years ago, now it’s everywhere. Airlines are pushing people as far as they can in order to maximize cash extraction. It’s no surprise more people are snapping. [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-08-11/airlines-have-been-shrinking-seats https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-08-11/airlines-h...

pohl 3y ago

Which part of that is grounds for assault?

cainxinth 3y ago
None of them, but I don’t think those are being offered as justifications for violence, but to help explain the rise in prevalence. If you cram more and more people into smaller and smaller spaces, opportunities for conflict are going to increase. Personally, though, I think it’s more a matter of air travel becoming more accessible. Air traffic doubled in the last two decades. There used to be a lot fewer people flying because there weren’t as many routes and low cost options.

PeterStuer 3y ago

True. And add to that a massive dose of unchecked entitlement and endemic main character syndrome on the part of the passengers and you get this explosive coctail.

black_13 3y ago
[dead]