Does Airlines make exceptions for the Digital Divide?
 

There are still many folks on this planet...pick your subgroup...that do not have ready access to aa.com. I think of my 90 year old aunt who does not have the skills to operate her PC and lives alone. (God bless her) When she makes reservations she talks to an AA agent and is subject to the booking fee. Obviously this puts a 'tax' on the elderly in this case.

Are there exceptions to the process?

Are you asking "have they ever made an exception" or "are there institutionalized exceptions?"

Yes to the first, No to the second.

Cheers.

Ah... call it a tax to dal up the rhetoric.

Perhaps she can no longer mow her own lawn. Is paying somebody to mow the lawn a tax on her?:rolleyes: AA charges a fee for the reservation booking service, just as most travel agents do. Get over it.

Why don't you help her book her flights?

Or teach her how to use the Internet. I hear it's pretty cool, and that even some old people like it.

My in-laws (78 and 77) do many things on the interwebs. Granted it's AOL dial-up, but still... :)

Cheers.

I agree. You are her exception.

Help her book her tickets. That is one of the things young internet-saavy nephews and nieces are there for in the world. ;)

Well....that was refreshing! Let's try again. Another subgroup. How about the poor ? the blind? the elderly without such a nice nephew? or a Frontier Web page designer?

She does not mow her lawn...never did. What a stupid reference! But I noticed the source so that piece did not shock me.

Perhaps Obama will fix this.

Yes just like he will make AA into Emirates F quality in Y.....

there are problems that government should not try to solve?! :rolleyes:

No. Unless she flies more than once per month, it's a subsidy. The savings on net access more than pays for the booking fee.

The poor? Public Access at the Library - sides where is the money for the flight comin' from?
The blind? Assitant, phone, braille keyboard w/ voice computer thinger..The elderly? Phone or friend?

Point is, we didn't always have internet and I still use the phone at times. I don't know a single person who doesn't have a friend or family member who is unwilling to help.
Or maybe you are just being silly. :)

Yes. it absolutely is, and it's not just AA. It's a pricing scheme called second-degree price discrimination. You know it as a senior citizen discount or a student discount. On AA, you know it as a lower price if you are willing to book two-weeks in advance or stay Saturday night. The point is that AA (or any business) will work very hard to extract as much money as possible from those willing to pay it. As AA sees it, I (net savvy) am not willing to pay, while your aunt is (or she could find some way not to). Technology has not raised the price for your aunt, it has simply lowered overall cost to all passengers by finding a way to differentiate between two levels of willingness to pay.

I guarantee you that as soon as most (or even many) people refuse to book AA because of the fee, that fee would go away because it would be an ineffective way to extract additional revenue from those willing to pay it.

Heck, my 80 some year old grandmother found her new husband on the internet.

Where will one go instead of AA?
IIRC, virtually every major airlines charge phone service fee (please correct me if I'm wrong here).

UA doesn't even waiver phone ticketing fees for the things that cannot be booked on united.com, so I highly doubt airlines will waive fee for OP's aunt.

No, this is not price discrimination. Not even close. If older people had more money to spend, then maybe. On the contrary, it's a known fact that older people typically have less money to spend and are thus less willing to spend it. (That's why you can find senior citizen fares on certain routes, which can be quite attractive.)

Airlines are not trying to extract the extra $20 from an old person. They are simply trying to discourage people from booking by phone because of the costs involved in paying the agents. Ideally, the airlines would like it if EVERYONE would book online (not to mention make changes online, select seats online, check-in online, etc. - also partially why fees for some of these things sometimes exist). That would save them a LOT of money.

Betcha’ my 93 year old grandmother spends more time on the internet than your grandmother!

The "digital divide" on a global scale is, I'd imagine, part of the reason why airlines don't charge telephone booking fees everywhere.

This is also a cultural thing. People in Bermuda are still conditioned to dealing with a real person. Local travel agencies charge $50 per booking and still have very brisk business. DL, for instance, does not charge a fee for telephone or in-person bookings for flights originating Bermuda. People here would completely stop buying DL tickets.

I don't know how to work on cars.

My neighbor is a mechanic and he fixes his own cars.

I pay 350 bucks to have a timing belt replaced whereas he pays just 60 bucks for parts and replaces his own.

Am I being taxed for lacking the knowledge to work on cars?

Can we move this over to another thread? Like the Huffington Post...

Ohmigod! Do you mean to tell me that airlines are a BUSINESS?!?!?!?!?!
For profit and everything???? :eek: