Originally Posted by
GadgetFreak
...There will almost always be a price that will get the VDBs....
There will always be a price - and it's the obvious answer to avoid such incidents.
That addresses the passengers needs, but there's a lot that also has to be accounted for behind the scenes. My understanding is a partner's crew needed to be transported. In this case - who should bear the financial brunt of displacing passengers? United? United would have to work out new agreements with partner airlines (passing the costs on to them) allowing United to offer any amount of money to make room for their employees. The potential for fraud also goes up with GAs being able to offer significantly more $ - UA would have to beef up surveillance of the IDB payouts.
The best answer is to take caps off the $ payouts and play catch up with all the behind-the-scenes details that people overlook.