PMD

Wow - Do you fly often?

Not all flights originate where you started. Part of the reason for higher fare, is no advance purchase, refund ability, length of stay and etc, Why should this not count? For an agent to sort pax by fare paid is not a hard task. Even if you had a low fare coach ticket, you may have have not been protected.

Toxa

AA, which I assume is your airline, works exactly the same way. So all the others.

Even if they decided to honour your "check-in priority system", you can bet more than 10 passengers had boarding passes way before you:
- people connecting from somewhere else;
- lots of BA elites that can check-in online 24h before flight (and actually do that a lot so can select better seats).

Kubla

Wow, I can't think of a more UNFAIR way to rebook people on a connection than by order of checkin. Just because Joe Blow is coming from LA and therefore checked in hours before me coming from Boston, he should get ahead of me in line? I don't think so.

flyrights

I'm really surprised that no one appears to understand that this "pecking order" of giving PRIORITY to people, simply based on the fare paid, is LEGAL DISCRIMINATION. The fare one paid for a ticket should in no way give priority in flight cancelation situations... It is simply a random way of determining priority which has NO corrolation to how urgently one passenger may have to get to their destination. Afterall, it just might be more important to someone traveling in economy to get to say a funeral on time, than a business executive needing to get to a meeting a day early. We can't have airline crews interviewing all passengers, listening and arbitrairly determining whose sob story is the most valid. Therefore, some IMPARTIAL and NON-biased factor should be considered, such as time of checkin. To discriminate against people, based on the fare paid, should be illegal. It's like the airline is saying, "you're not a member of our club, so you'll go last"... it's not much different than if an airline said, "your skin color isn't the one we let on first"... Fare paid is simply an arbitrary and irrelevant factor. Why does the airline even bother putting "OK" status for confirmed, if one person's "OK" is better than someone elses? The airlines should be REQUIRED to disclose at the time of ticketing the "pecking order", so people can make informed choices. Because they don't openly disclose this, it's just another way legal form of discrimination. The airlines should have to disclose, up front and very clearly, informing people of something like: "you're buying or redeeming an economy ticket and you will have LESS chance of getting to your destination on time than if you buy a First Class ticket". Let the buyer beware. Because they don't disclose this, honestly and openly in advance, they are commiting fraud by not informing people in advance that their cheap ticket comes with FEWER RIGHTS than a more expensive ticket. This should not be tolerated by the public.

ScottC

Welcome to the real world my friend... Even though what you say is correct I doubt it's going to change and seriously when I pay $7000+ for a ticket I expect to get better treatment than someone on a $200 consolidator ticket, it's simple business and it's clear which of the 2 pax means more to the airline.

greg99

You're kidding, right?

How is it discrimination? You and everyone else had an equal opportunity to pay for an F ticket for that flight.

Upon what possible grounds can you suggest that this should be illegal?

As others have pointed out, you receive a package of amenities when you purchase an F class ticket. Among these is the right to check in later than Y class passengers. To penalize F passengers during irregular operations because they checked in pursuant to their check-in requirements, which are significantly shorter than those for Y class passengers (which your system would require) makes no sense whatsoever.

Greg

BlatheringPenguin

I agree with you ScottC.

As for "Legal Discrimination"...the way FlyRight is using that term...we do it all the time and it can be perfectly right and fair.

On the personal level:
I discriminate between airlines. Even when AmericaWest is cheaper, I'll fly United.

On the corporate level:
Every single airline 'elite' program is based on 'legal discrimination'. If one provides more revenue to the airline over time, one gets better service.
A specific example is United's E+. If you've paid a higher fare (or provided more revenue over the last year, i.e. are a premier member), you get a better crack at sitting in E+. What's wrong with that? (The only thing wrong I see is that I'd rather they follow AA's example and do MRTC.)

If I'm on a full-fare first class ticket, I expect better treatment than when I'm on some deeply discounted (or mileage award) ticket. Better treatment includes a bigger seat and priority when flights are cancelled.

In a perfect world (flights never oversold, delayed, or cancelled; security lines never more than a minute or two for everyone) none of this would be an issue. Sadly, it's not a perfect world.

Just my two cents,
-BP

SMessier

Goodness gracious, wake up and smell the euros/yen/dollars. Time of checkin is as arbitrary as it can get in order to assign priority, and it seems your entire argument rests on the fact that you expect you would have benefited from the system.

Using fare paid/class of service is not "random" by the way -- random would have been choosing passengers without any criteria, in which case your odds of making the next flight would have been 10 in x.

Actually, time of checkin would also be biased, in favor of people who were connecting and had checked in many, many hours before their flight, people with internet access who were able to check in online, etc...

You did have a confirm seat on BA xyz, but that flight was canceled. When I read the title of the thread I assumed it dealt with denied boarding compensation (or lack of), but in cases of cancelation it becomes quite different since in many cases it is simply impossible to accomodate all those present on other flights. Yet such cases are, fortunately, rare enough.

If it's illegal as you claim, disclosing it would not change that, and I fail to see why you then think this would be a solution.

Quite frankly you should focus your energy on getting BA to cover your hotel room costs for the night, because the rest is pretty useless.

Chiangi

I am not familiar with airline legal issues but I thought the obligation of an airline is to safely bring passengers from A to B but not necessarily on/in time. Or are they obliged to do so on/in time, too?

Kubla

In some cases, you are entitled to compensation if an airline cannot transport you in a timely fashion. But in many, you are not.

I mistakenly posted earlier that flyrights felt he needed to be in Berlin before other people, but upon reviewing what he wrote, that doesn't seem to be the case. Upon review, I really can't figure out what he was saying. It's not all right for an airline to reaccomdate based on frequent flyer status or class of service paid for, that's for sure. It's not okay to reaccomodate absed on sob stories. He thinks there needs to be an impartial method, but then he comes up with check in time, which is totally skewed and not at all impartial. It seems to me that the only impartial thing to do is a truly random drawing for those seats.

[This message has been edited by Kubla (edited 07-09-2002).]

landspeed

You're losing me here- isn't time of check in an even more "random way of determining priority which has NO corrolation to how urgently one passenger may have to get to their destination," which would also fall under your definition of "legal discrimination"?

If I need to get somewhere in a hurry, I don't show up six hours before a flight that I booked two+ weeks in advance- I either buy a full-fare ticket (work travel) or use a AAnytime/rule-buster/etc. ticket (personal travel).

tcswede

But the public is forced to tolerate this. If I buy a discounted fare I have fewer rights, I can not change the ticket at will or have it refunded, nor can buy it on short notice. The shorter the notice is - at which I buy the ticket, the more rights I have - a full C class intra europe ticket offers me the freedom of choice in terms of changes or refunds - even in term of carrier if needed. That would be the discrimination that you charge. I call it fact of life - and I would expect that if I pay a premium for additional services such as convenience - I would get preferred service when the airline is not able to perform for whatever reason.
Cheers

Thomas

[This message has been edited by tcswede (edited 07-09-2002).]

SK

Maybe we are too harsh on flyrights. Of course most would find the opinion, that the order of checking-in should be more determining than the class of travel, elite level etc., naive, but we shouldn't forget that he is probably an infrequent flier. Most infrequent fliers have not thought of such things before, and getting into the logic of first class perks, elite ff status, fare codes etc. isn't the first thing that pops into their mind, if all they do is fly once or twice a year in economy. To them, the comparison with the procedures of bus travel sounds plausible.

LikeItUpFront

My experience on cancelled flights (although only domestic) is that as soon as the flight is cancelled you hustle back to the ticket counter(or the club or call you elite access number) and passangers generally get rerouted on a first come first srved basis. Although they may try a little harder to accomidate elite passengers, the 10 seats may have simpley gone to the first 10 people who snapped them up.

Plato90s

Maybe, but the account is a very old one, hence the lack of a registered date. That means it's 1999-vintage or older. One would think he'd read about this type of situation or learn of the myriad ways revenue First Class passengers differ from coach passengers.

He obviously knew enough to want hotel room and meal vouchers.

BTW, with the timing I suspect the airport operation problems was the air controllers' strike. In the event of external causes, I don't think airlines have any responsibility for cancellations other than refund.