Originally Posted by
weero
I feel with you Mike Jacoubowsky!
All this became possible because of the abominable WX excuse. As long as weather related excuses allow airlines to walk from their obligations and unilaterally abandon their duties, these things will never be rectified.
The silly attitude that WX equals force majeure promotes bad planning on behalf of the airlines, a small cloud is an amnesty for all planning related mishaps later that day.
If airlines were held fully liable for WX delays and overnights, the incremental cost would initially be added to the ticket price and hence be neutral over a large number of flights. But it would then honour good planning on behalf of the airline as this would then lower their WX related expense.
/agree with this. There are some airlines that consider even a mechanical delay as something out of their control, and from a point of view, it is true, but we can all have a point of view, that doesn't make it always acceptable to others.
As for charging for an "all in" price, which includes a type of travel insurance for hotels in wx...etc, How would you suggest it...I am not debating, rather inquiring...should it only cover the cost of the airline overnighting you and/meals based on a pre-determined amount, or should it also cover the cost of the lost hotels you booked, and if so, should they charge more for the guy's ticket that has an expensive hotel booked at his destination than the guy with the cheap hotel, or with no hotel, but is staying with friends? SHould it have a variable price as to the importance of your on-time arrival at the destination, say a funeral would cost infinite for the plane ticket as the once in a lifetime opportunity to say goodbye has an immeasurable value, while a guy going to visit his GF for the weekend, should pay less as the reason for the trip can be replaced easier? If it is simple and only covers accommodations, would an actuary define the risk based on route (good luck MR's) seasonal weather patterns, cost of hotels in route (including variable rates of hotels due to fluctuating hotel inventory,) or would it just be a flat price, with a fixed payout? Should CEO's that make 5 mill/yr get the value of their lost time, while those making min wage get less, and thus pay less?
One can do things like this, one can go to LAS and bet on just about anything, one could pull a Kastanza and bet on on-time arrivals, one can buy travel insurance with fixed rules and coverage.
I'n not trying to be sarcastic, as I have debated this model in my head a few times, when people demand compensation for the intrinsic value of their time and reason for travel.
In the end, it is a travel company, not an OTB, nor an insurance company. Imagine how quickly an airline like Iceland Air would have liquidated after the volcano had they had to be responsible for everything, or some other natural disaster closing a major hub of operations. Imagine the DoD activating the CRAF fleet. Perhaps when the ATC limits flow, they could compensate you directly, and eliminate the airlines from this equation.
Originally Posted by
Passmethesickbag
Hmmm.... we're talking about the UA employee who called the OP a d*ck and his daughter a b****h - in front of her?
Well, let me requote MJ:
"While there my daughter sees the guy from the prior gate talking with another agent and referred, I kid you not, to the b___h and dick (his exact words) who wanted to get on his plane."
So a 3rd party (daughter) observes party 1 (cs agent in question) and party 2 (another agent) talking, listens in, and then assumes it is them (I hate to tell you, but every single airline employee I know including "the angel" sympathizes with Steven Slater) he refers to without engaging in conversation, then reports back to MJ (and I believe MJ to be a straightforward guy, and must assume he raised his daughter the same way) this, and he posts it here? Not quite the same thing as quoting the guy 1st hand, nor even realizing that we talk about LOTS of passengers who we perceive negatively, in a negative light (myself excluded, of course), when talking amongst ourselves (and we tell sympathetic stories too...we tell lots of stories...we have such colorful subjects/situations to talk about.)
I would say that somewhere between the eavesdropping, the background noise of an irrop ridden airport, and an upset girl, who then tells another, who then posts on the internet...something was lost or modified from actuality along the way, much as often happens in hearsay situations.
As to MJ's question on my previous post...I don't know how to edit quotes in a multithread kind of way, so I will just start a new thread and hope it gets merged/edited by the mods.