The passenger was absolutely in the wrong. If the aircraft captain says "get off my plane", for whatever reason, you get off. You can complain later, but you get off. Having to be dragged off bodily? The guy clearly suffers from a massively hypertrophied sense of entitlement. (He's a doctor.)
Nah, fuck that. If the captain is kicking you off for safety reasons or whatever, fine. But for commercial reasons? Fuck that.
I don't even think the airline was offering the DOT's minimum amount before forcibly bumping.
As far as I can tell they needed four seats to fly a deadheading crew. So it was either bump four passengers now or delay an entire aircraft full of passengers later.
I don't know if 2 is expressing just general dissatisfaction or an actual legal theory, but: no. If they decide to cancel your flight because there aren't enough passengers on it, they can do that too. If they're overbooked, they can even bump you in favour of someone who's a frequent flier.
The DOT minimum should be infinity.
As far as 6.2, yes, airlines have set up some awfully convenient rules for themselves, but at some point its right for consumers to call bullshit.
They can. But they are supposed to go higher in the compensation they offer for volunteers.
Also, ejected somebody by force and then calling it "re-accommodation" is Orwellian.
The whole thing is like something from a Carl Hiassen novel except that the clueless unpleasant entitled rich guy is not actually from Florida. He was offered compensation, he refused, he was ordered off, he refused, they called security on to drag him off, and then he actually ran back on to the aircraft and clung to his seat, chanting "I want to go home"!
Have you ever been trying to get out of Kentucky?
How much were they offering? In my experience, airlines start low and then keep bidding up until people start volunteering to get bumped. Usually it's only after they've increased the offer a couple of times with no results that they start unilaterally bumping people.
It's true that when the captain says "get off", you're supposed to get off and the complain later if you want. Still, I suspect that the gate agent fucked up here.
Still, I suspect that the gate agent fucked up here.
No question there. They should have known about the deadheading crew before they even started boarding passengers. Then at least Dr Self-Important would have had his toddler-style screaming fit in the departure lounge rather than actually on the aircraft.
Though he might then have tried to run on to the aircraft, hurl one of the other passengers out of the door and sit in their seat.
11: No, no, that's where they were HEADED. Weird, right?
Theoretically, doctors sometimes have patients who cannot wait another day.
Fuck that shit. The airlines are run by bullies. Just because they have the legal right to be bullies doesn't mean we have to acquiesce. The passenger is a maniac, but he's our maniac.
I'd be sympathizing with the guy even if he were a mailman rather than a doctor. He paid for a ticket, and the airline did not do reasonable problem-solving before dragging him forcibly out of the seat he had paid for.
If they decide to cancel your flight because there aren't enough passengers on it, they can do that too
They can. And when they do, they can expect no further custom from, for example, me, when there are any options at all.
The principle selling point for domestic business travel is schedule conformity. Tell me I can't get back to the office today (not because of weather or mechanical difficulties, for for profit), but must wait until tomorrow (and hope there are enough passengers for that flight) and you've blown it.
I also approve of it as a matter of norm-setting, to pull this back to the other thread. United could have offered better compensation for their overselling seats, to get volunteers to offer. And I bet they're now wishing they had, after the publicity this has brought them. (I came home yesterday to find Newt listening to United Breaks Guitars, which is newly salient. I bet United isn't happy that's getting hits again.)
So this guy did every other passenger a favor -- airlines are, I would bet, going to be a little looser with the compensation and slower with the violence when they have to deal with situations where they're getting paid for too many more seats than there are on the plane, and they can't fit all the paying customers.
He should have left on his own after he grabbed two beers and opened the inflatable ramp.
airlines are, I would bet, going to be a little looser with the compensation and slower with the violence
Had that really been a significant problem, up till now? The violence thing?
I mean, saying 'they needed the flight for a deadheading crew' sort of begs the question about responsibility. United had an emergent need for those four employees to be in a different city because they're running their business leanly enough that there's no slack when anything goes wrong.
That's their prerogative, but when it has a severe impact on the customers, the fact that the customers are going to be outraged is the tradeoff they're making. Which is cheaper, super-lean operations, or being known as the airline that will sell you a seat, let you board, and then forcibly drag you off rather than offering enough compensation to make it worth some passenger's while to leave voluntarily? United can go either way, but I don't see that the passengers have any responsibility to make that choice cheaper for them.
Also, the $800 compensation they offer is as a flight voucher. That's bullshit. $800 cash might have gotten better results.
24: No, because it is, in fact, outrageous. But it's not uncommon for people to be involuntarily removed from flights without an offer of sufficient compensation to get volunteers, and that sort of involuntary removal is, obviously, backed up by the threat of violence if you refuse to be removed. This guy, who is I am sure a very difficult, noncompliant person generally, called them on that threat, and found out they weren't bluffing.
I think it's healthy for the airlines to remember that sometimes, people are going to call them on it, and if they're going to sell people seats and then take them back, part of the cost calculation has to be the publicity they're going to get if they need to get violent about it.
Let's not assume there will be sufficient natural pushback from this bad publicity. Everyone hated back when airlines could and did bump without compensation as the default mechanism; it took government regulation to get to the current regime of compensated voluntary rebooking.
What would be wrong with, say, an amendment to the existing regulations that no passenger may be involuntarily removed once boarded? I think that's an implicit assumption of the existing regulations, which talk about when someone may be "denied boarding involuntarily". (You could make an exception for real emergencies, like maybe they need space for someone being transported for medical reasons.)
26: At a discussion elsewhere about this, someone said that they'd heard of airlines offering Amazon gift cards instead of vouchers? Is that true? I wouldn't normally volunteer to get bumped for a voucher, but I would be pretty likely to do it for a reasonable size gift card.
When I first read comment 1, I thought it was a really clever deadpan piss-take on the comments that inevitably appear under any black-person-got-shot-for-no-particular-reason news story the minute it goes up. But no, I guess you meant it.
ran back on to the aircraft and clung to his seat, chanting "I want to go home"!
Dude does not seem to have been all there at that point. I can't tell from the video if he already had blood in his mouth at that point, but the dude just suffered a harsh blow to the head. I'd cut him some slack for anything that happened after that point even if you don't agree with his initial stand.
Seconding 22.2.
A few other salient points: The compensation seems to be usually/always in the form of a voucher for future travel, not actual cash. There's also a maximum on how much they're allowed to compensate, which is bonkers and makes the game theory less interesting.
31 before seeing 26. Y'all started typing fast.
27.2 is right. They're trying to get the benefits of having an iron fist (in their terms of carriage) without paying any costs (by making everything 'voluntary').
28: Actually, looking at those regs... I wonder if they were in compliance? They have to inform people when they're asking for volunteers that if it comes to involuntary removals, the compensation for an involuntary removal is $1350 (under the circumstances that probably applied)? The story as told doesn't sound as if they did.
There's also a maximum on how much they're allowed to compensate,
That's not exactly how I'd read the 'maximum' in that reg -- I mean, you can always give people money. The 'maximum' is what they're required to pay a non-volunteer who's involuntarily denied a seat, and of course the airline is never going to offer more than the deal they can get by fiat.
Everyone knows that what happened to Dao could happen if they didn't comply, which is why people usually comply. Everyone has heard stories of people being escorted off the plane by police (sometimes for good reasons, and sometimes not).
35: That makes sense. I was reading in an overly-literal manner, although I'm going to blame Yglesias for tweeting it first and putting the idea in my head. Thank you for the correction.
I only have one story of that. They had a good reason.
Note that if you're ever bumped involuntarily, they're required by law to give you compensation in cash (unless you agree to accept vouchers instead, so don't accept them!). For voluntary bumping they're allowed to not offer cash, but you can negotiate for cash or something more cash-like (e.g. Amazon gift cards, which don't expire and which you will use eventually).
This weekend Delta paid a family 11K in AmEx gift cards (also essentially cash, e.g. can be used to purchase Amazon gift cards) for two days delay on an international flight.
An interesting thing I learned from all of this is that Delta really is much better than the other legacies at avoiding involuntary bumping (even though they have much higher rates of voluntary bumping!) because they are able to recognize overbooked flights earlier and get people to bid on what compensation they'd accept when they check-in, so that by the time people are at the gate they already have a list of who is being bumped and for how much.
39: Ditto--I can't think of a previous case I've heard about that hasn't involved a good reason. Belligerent drunk assaulting a flight attendant? Sure, send him off in cuffs. Dude shouting racist slurs at other passengers? Fine with me. This is not the same.
I am peripherally acquainted with this guy, and being dragged off a plane couldn't have happened to a more appropriate person.
unless you agree to accept vouchers instead, so don't accept them!
That's what my uncle told me before I went on my first flight as an adult.
I know! You think the war on Christmas isn't a real thing, and then it turns out it's one horrible horrible person.
I not only knew this guy, but was actually on the relevant flight with him! He didn't get dragged off though, once they found him he went peacefully (and then they kicked us all of the plane to search it for bombs).
and of course the airline is never going to offer more than the deal they can get by fiat.
Why not? Offering more than required could easily make sense if that's going to result in happy customers voluntarily accepting deals instead of unhappy customers involuntarily being removed.
Some people obtain pleasure from the misfortunes of others.
United: Our flights are cheaper because part of our employee compensation is your pain.
I have to say I would accept an extremely small level of compensation for being kicked off a United flight, as long as it meant I didn't have to fly on a later United flight. I might even be willing to pay them.
The summary I read made it sound like they used a random number generator to pick the four seats to bump. The system requires that you comply doesn't sound like the optimal approach to what is likely to turn into a delicate situation but United probably has a management philosophy of eradicating autonomy among workers, preferring to serve everyone behind the same corporate face. If your human container is not standards compliant another space will be found for it among future inventory.
If the guy in 42 always behaves like that he should be on a no-fly, no-dine no-have-anything-nice-happen-to him list forever.
My experience with internal US flights is minimal, but I did, a year or so ago, sit at the gate waiting to board an American flight and the gate agent wanted a couple of volunteers and offered such astronomical compensation I was almost tempted to go for it myself. I had sort of assumed that there was an agreed fixed scale. Maybe there should be.
I have never seen a volunteer offer over about $400, but I've heard of offers over $1000. Passengers from the United flight said they were offering $800.
It is true that it took a major investment of stubbornness from both parties to get this to get so bad. But it's still true that dragging him away in chains was excessive.
52.1: For other reasons, he pretty much is.
The compensation was almost certainly vouchers that were non-transferable and on airlines you'd never fly again before they expired.
I wonder how much of the press this is getting is because everyone knows United is a really shitty airline, and likes to see them get whats coming to them. Even if, in this case, it was not actually United, but a regional airline operating under the United Express brand.
The summary I read made it sound like they used a random number generator to pick the four seats to bump.
It's actually a "random" number generator that prioritizes passengers by class, ticket price and frequent flier status, and (secondarily) seeks not to break up families flying together, especially with minor children.
I actually kind of wonder if there was an ethnic element -- if they were working from a stereotype of a middle-aged Asian guy being unlikely to make a fuss. (I wouldn't think of this as an accurate stereotype, but I think it's one that the airline employees might plausibly hold.) I sort of never believe anyone who says any decision was made randomly unless it is audited out the wazoo.
I really doubt it was random. Probably it was 60, or maybe picking people who were the last to check in.
Your experience in 52 is exactly why I feel like there had to be multiple opportunities to secure a better outcome. I have this experience nearly every time I fly: they start offering vouchers and I start asking myself if I *really* need to be back at work tomorrow. Even if this flight crew weren't getting any volunteers, I have to wonder how hard they really tried and if a little patience and a speck of emotional intelligence could have brought this to a happier ending.
Years ago in Brooklyn, the police tasered a guy who was out on a 2nd floor awning with his clothes off, waving around a flourescent tube like it was a light saber, and surprise, he fell off the awning and died. Of course I agree that broken glass and falling crazy people are legitimate public safety hazards that need to be dealt with, but when I read about this I thought, what did you think was going to happen when you taser someone on a sloped, unsteady surface, way up off the ground? Was it really better to taser this guy instead of blocking the sidewalk until his episode ran itself out?
That's how I see this -- okay, maybe this guy was unreasonable, but once you forcibly drag somebody off the plane who was acting on a feeling of injustice we can all relate to, what did you think was going to happen? Why not try a little harder to make it go the other way?
The flight attendants are a regional airline, but the gate agents are United and they're the ones who deal with bumping and compensation. Hard to know what exactly was happening though because it's unusual to bump people who are already on a plane.
I took a $400 voucher, but it was for taking a later flight the same day.
I'm morbidly fascinated about whether Trump will tweet about this, and if he does whether it'll be to defend the cops.
55 - AWB posted a link elsewhere from the Louisville paper noting that he had gotten his medical license suspended for sleeping with his patients so, yup, it's NO ANGEL time.
I heard today that people were already on the plane when they started offering. People are in a different mental state on the plane than they are milling about in the gate area. (And more different still when they are bidding on the Delta website.)
I guess that explains why he wanted to get back to has patients.
However random the program was - assuming they used some program - the point I was trying to make is they didn't take long to abandon the idea of making personal appeals.
I like to picture them using a 150-sided die.
55: Yes, I saw that - trying to be preemptive. (insert diaresis)
I mean, he was the fourth passenger booted. We're the other three from stereotypically "compliant" ethnic profiles?
Dunno either way. But expand that to 'demographics' -- if I were doing the picking I'd be aiming at middle-aged people generally. Plausibly throwing in an element of who I felt sympathetic or unsympathetic toward.
I was fairly surprised at the incident -- have flown United a lot and never been involuntarily bumped. I naively thought it didn't happen, because they could always increase compensation to get volunteers.
I am then just shocked at the response, which appears to have been doubling-down on legalities/rights rather than ameliorating the public relations disaster. Is the era of Trump? the apparent effectiveness of never apologizing and to rigorously defending any action/statement, no matter how wrong and no matter the facts?
So Ajay goes from mocking people with disabilities to being whatever #1 was all about? Way to make your parents proud, dude.
There's someone who claims to be a lawyer on reddit saying that what United did isn't even allowed by their own rules, because while they can prevent a customer from boarding the plane due to overbooking/logistics, once the customer is on the plane with a confirmed boarding pass, they can only be removed if they are a safety threat. Also there was something about paying customers getting priority over non-paying customers in terms of who you're allowed to kick off an overfull flight.
Also, Chicago to Louisville isn't that far, they could have booked a van and driven the employees there as they weren't needed that urgently.
But yeah, I'm not surprised United did this, but WTF were they thinking in terms of PR?
Renting a van for the crew probably wouldn't have worked, because of rest rules for crew (they have to get to Louisville in time to have enough rest to be allowed to fly the flight in the morning). Of course they could have arranged ground transportation for the bumped passengers (in addition to compensation).
Yes, it would have made sense to reimburse rental cars for the volunteers, so they wouldn't have to wait almost 24 hours for the next flight. But airlines do not do rental cars, for some reason. Well, the obvious reason is $, but maybe there's another.
I have flown United probably half a dozen round trips in the past six months. I don't have uniformly negative feelings toward them, largely because their flight attendant gave me a free scotch when we were stuck on the tarmac for a couple of hours (everybody else got a cookie), but I can't say I'm anything but happy that somebody made them drag him bodily from the plane. It increases the odds they'll treat me better out of fear of another incident.
86
Google says it's less than a 5 hour drive. That sounds like it should be enough time for the employees. Or yeah, they could have rented a van and drove. I'd take a 5 hour drive and $800 if that were offered.
As a United flight attendant never once said, "We know you have a choice of airlines when you fly, but we also know your only other choice at this airport is Delta."
Have I mentioned I'm taking a train to Nebraska this week?
I mean, drive volunteers from the flight.
I have heard of airlines hiring shuttle busses for weather on shortish routes, so it's not totally out of the realm of possibility
90
I would take Delta over United every time.
It increases the odds they'll treat me better out of fear of another incident. learn that they enjoy the taste of human blood and become an even greater threat than they were before.
I stopped taking Delta because the planes were so fucking old. The first flight I took my son on was met on the ground by fire trucks for some reason they never specified clearly.
When I say "Delta" and "United", I mean their regional affiliates. Anyway, I am booked on Delta for a flight later this month.
I had been waiting to see what Ask the Pilot would say.
Have you ever been trying to get out of Kentucky?
We have always already been trying to get out of Kentucky. Just ask Smearcase.
It fell down.
Everyone knows the joke about the FBI, the CIA, and the CPD trying to find a rabbit in a patch of woods as a test of their respective investigatory prowess?
99: I think this may be something I saw RTed earlier - a TV reporter who was talking about going through a bunch more dirt on the passenger. Now they have a three-part tweet defending themself as "giving all angles of the story" and decrying violent threats against them.
The FBI is sent in, spends a day combing the woods, comes out empty handed.
The CIA does the same.
Two CPD officers are sent into the woods. An hour and half later, a limping, bleeding bear comes staggering out of the woods, weeping as it cries out, "I'm a rabbit, I'm a rabbit!"
92: My wife has a horror story about that, actually. She was flying back via LAX and they canceled the last flight of the day. So they took an airport shuttle bus and drove them 5 hours--without compensation--evidently they promise to get you to a destination, how unspecified. She religiously avoids all connections in LAX to this day.
I'm kind of amazed at just how big this story is*; I can't say that it hits me strongly, all things considered. I mean, I'm suitably outraged and all that, I just can't get over it being the biggest story in the country for 24 hours running.
Anyway, saw a take that I didn't buy. We've all seen, and I assumed agreed with, "It doesn't matter that he was a doctor." But someone said they don't like "he paid for his seat", because that implies rights accruing to wealth. But I don't think that's the intention/implication at all. To a first approximation, everyone on an airplane paid for their seat; there's no implication that there are undeserving fliers, but this guy is an exception.
The point of "he paid" is that, when you buy something, whether it's a mansion or a stick of gum, you now have a right to it. It does, in both a legal and a moral sense, matter whether the thing you are claiming was arbitrarily given/assigned or chosen and paid for by you. Whether the car you're trying to take from me is mine or one you've lent me makes a big difference, right?
*theory: it hits all the suitable hot buttons of the moment (over violent policing, out of control corporations, ill-treatment of POC, and yes, the shittiness of air travel) without involving Trump, even a little. I think that, to some extent, people are just happy to have a shitshow that doesn't involve Trump and all he entails.
102: between this and the press reaction to Syria, the media is doing a bang-up job of reminding everybody that, as an institution, they suck.
105: Paying for his seat is especially relevant given United's recent leggings controversy.
I'm kind of amazed at just how big this story is*; I can't say that it hits me strongly, all things considered.
Right - it's much less important than, say, Sessions cancelling the investigation into the forensics that put a bunch of innocent people in jail.
It's also much less of an outrage than, say, an 8-year-old being shot to death in a classroom.
"Assigned to a different setting."
"Assigned to a different setting based on the results of standardized testing."
I have re-accommodated
the passengers
that were in coach
and which
you were probably
trying to ply
with measly vouchers
Forgive me
they were delicious
so recalcitrant
and so revenue-enhancing
Delta sucks too. Because of a ground stop on Wednesday or Thursday in Atlanta, they wound up cancelling his San Diego to Minneapolis flight Saturday. He was trapped in San Diego for two extra days, and his girlfriend had to miss the scheduled first day of her new job. They looked at driving as far as Last Vegas and SFO to find alternate flights--all booked. If they'd been willing to drop $1250 X 4, they could have caught a Sun Country flight yesterday, but they wouldn't be reimbursed. I would be Insane with rage if I were them.
Looks like Dao already has engaged lawyers to represent him in connection with this incident. Seems very likely a lawsuit will follow.
He is still in the hospital in Chicago, but he has already engaged lawyers, I meant to say.
Delta >> United for international flights. Much newer and less crowded planes, which really matters for 13-hour long flights. Plus changing flights at Detroit >> changing flights at O'Hare.
Also re selection process, if a machine does it by learning from past incidents which categories of customers are the easiest to screw over, it could easily select by race w/o any explicit racism on the part of the gate agents.
113: That happened to the same guy, Dao? Or to someone else?
108: Beauregard is cartoonishly evil. He's also promised to go after states with legal weed, comparing it to the opioid epidemic. I'm looking forward to his first big civil rights case. I don't doubt he'll handle it well.
I don't think Americans are going to actually not fly United over this, we'll all forget about it in a week or two and move on. But I bet this is going to do United long-term serious harm in China, where boycotting United and just United is much easier to do.
I wish I could say I was going to boycott United over this. Sadly, I've flown then twice in the past .... 20yr, and the last time only b/c it was work, and I had no real choice. Given a choice, I'd never fly them. Never. And I do everything possible, to ensure I have a choice.
They've sucked for that entire 20yr, as far as I can tell. I've never heard a good story about United in coach. Oh and then they went and merged with Continental, the -other- never-fly-again airline.
Considering even an Obama appointee was prosecuting dispensaries in California, I'm not optimistic about Sessions's plans there.
120, 121: At least more commentators (here, here) this go-round are connecting the dots and saying "this is what entrenched oligopoly gets you".
There is no hope for this country if people who are allegedly on the left are defending United Airlines in this situation. (Not everyone, fortunately.)
I wonder how much original reporting has gone into the stories about Dao and how much has come in via "tips" and "sources". Also wonder what kind of strategic advertising partnerships the outlets running the stories have with United and the airline industry in general.
Have I mentioned I'm taking a train to Nebraska this week?
I was on a train a couple of years ago where the conductor called in the police to kick a guy off in San Bernadino.
BTW, it's not even obvious that United was acting lawfully in using force, given that the passenger had already boarded. Their terms say passengers can be denied boarding involuntarily on overbooked flights, but
1) flight was not overbooked;
2) passenger had already boarded; does removing him when he's already boarded count as denied boarding?
3) a separate rule governs removing a person from transport, and involuntarily being bumped is not among the reasons stated under which this is allowed.
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/
I wonder how much original reporting has gone into the stories
I'm sure this is totally unfair, but my basic prejudice is that nearly all news stories are spoon fed from an interested party, with an opportunity to comment usually but not always given to the other side.
128 is not in the least unfair. That's the business model that maximises advertising reve -- ooh! shiny!
128- This may be relevant to your interests: http://www.ianwelsh.net/scorn-so-you-read-it-in-the-newspaper/
122: I could be very wrong about this, but
(a) yes, originally Obama's DOJ was prosecuting MJ growers and such (I recall a case of a guy who was -completely- aboveboard (including hiring an accountant to do his books, paying taxes, etc), and when he got arrested, said "if I'd know I could have gotten arrested, I'd have never gotten into this!" -- didn't change anything, he got jail time)
(b) BUT, I also recall reading that the DOJ was writing up new regulations, that ordered all USAs and the DEA to cease prosecutions in states where MJ was legal. Those were supposed to come out soon.
I was planning on learning how to smoke pot as soon as those came out. unfair! (*grin*)
Not that it matters now. Keebler Elf done scotched that 'un.
130: only if your interest is in paranoid drivel.
"Someone like Corbyn is far more of a threat to the powers that be than Trump could ever be."Almost as much of a threat, in fact, as the massed moral authority of all the commenters here put together -- and Bob; don't forget Bob. Trump threatens the system with nuclear annihilation, the collapse of the US state, and various other disagreeable outcomes. Corbyn is an irrelevant joke whose only impact on events at the moment is to prevent the emergence of any functioning opposition party in the UK. Which is, I suppose, more than we can do.
The press is extremely bad at speaking truth to power, though no worse than most other trades or estates (the law?) but the Corbynistas hate us because we do manage sometimes to speak truth to the powerless.
roger, seriously: when you're writing a comment yourself, you produce mostly sensible stuff, some humour, some insight, and the occasional outburst of wrongness, just like everyone else here, but when you link to other articles it is almost invariably to some huge steaming freshly-laid log of utter stupidity. Stop!
Never linked to a David Brooks piece.
From the link, for example:
A study from last year found that in only 11% of newspaper articles were Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's views presented without alteration. I hope you're shocked by that number. It means that newspapers were lying about Corbyn's views almost 90% of the time.
The two great things about this are:
1) in an article about how the newspapers aren't to be trusted, his link does not point to the study itself but to a newspaper article about the study
2) While the newspaper article summarises the study fairly accurately, Ian Welsh outright lies about its conclusions.
It is literally "The newspapers lie! Look, here is a truthful newspaper article which does not prove my point, but I will lie and say it does."
I only trust the guy who reviews kitchen gadgets for the Guardian.
I might actually buy today's gadget, on the strength of his review.
I never did make onion soup this winter. It was too warm to give me the inclination and I was very busy.
Anyway, vaguely excited to try long distance train travel for the first time in 25 years. Probably the 25-year wait is crucial for being excited rather than dreadful. The last train I took through the Ohio was decorated to look like "Thomas".
In case anyone didn't see it, the kerning police got the wrong guy.
Proportional fonts are tough to keep working correctly. That's why I prefer SAS Monospace.
Well, you know who all look alike, don't you? So we can add racism in the media to profiling by United. Any bets on what comes next?
Well, you know who all look alike, don't you?
Sans serif fonts?
That kind of thing works perfectly well, except like ethically and stuff. Plenty more people were paying attention when the first reports came out than will see the correction and even many people who see the correction will still retain a mental "bad doctor" tag. People don't like to switch their minds once they've attached an affect.
Is the correction solid yet? The link looks as if it might still be iffy.
Not that the original smear matters at all, whether or not it was true.
139: It's not a completely stupid idea. My kids used to use swimming goggles when chopping onions, until Hitsuji decided he could do without them and Tatsu decided that if Hitsuji could cook better than him, he wasn't going to bother cooking at all.
It's not a stupid idea. It's just a useful, but ridiculous idea. Like umbrella hats.
150: I had a whole book of those ideas back around 2000. Japanese "almost useless inventions", which they had given the name "chindogu". A large forehead-affixable banner telling people on the train which stop to wake you up at. Miniature fan with a button so cats could cool down their food with it. Etc.
But an umbrella hat is really useful. Just too stupid for words.
151: One of those "useless Japanese inventions" was the selfie stick: designed by Minolta in 1983, laughed at then forgotten for the next 30 years, and now making lots of money for manufacturers in the Instagram era.
What would it take for umbrella hats to become thought of as sufficiently useful that people wouldn't mind looking really, really stupid by wearing one?
The increased heat and solar radiation produced when global warming gets going a bit.
When people started using ordinary umbrellas they were followed around by bunches of kids pointing and hooting. It takes a bunch of people toughing it out for a while.
I bet it's easier to smack a kid with an umbrella than it is with an umbrella hat.
141: Train travel is great! I only did one day's worth but would happily do it again. Especially now that my youngest isn't afraid of train bathrooms.
|| Republican dysfunction: not just a federal issue |>
Airplane bathrooms and kind of scary.
I'm getting the Eurostar next week, in fact. Re: long distance travel. Then going on a little by-rail jaunt around the low countries for work.
When we booked the meetings I think we forgot that while Ghent and the Hague are somewhat close (definitely close by US standards) the rail journey isn't quite at '30 minutes in quiet comfort' level.
But you get to say "Ghent" a lot which makes it all worth it.
The biggest pain is that the train is scheduled for 11:59 p.m. Which is a pain with a ten year old and means "Streetlight People" keep going through my head.
163: born and raised in Windsor, Ontario.
There are like thirty people here waiting for the train. Three are Amish.
Three Amish. One of them is the only other child besides mine. I'm sleepy so I'm glad I booked a compartment.
||
NMM to the great German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (lots of Fassbinder and Scorsese, et al) and also to the great comedian Charlie Murphy.
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¦¦
NMM to Charlie Murphy.
For some reason, I'm more disturbed by this than any of last year's deaths, except for Eco's, about which nobody appeared to give two shits. Bleargh.
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You were pwned, fm, with added death.
with added death
Capturing the Zeitgeist.
re: 161
Yeah, and decide which spelling to use (English spelling or the one the locals use).
174. Also, be alert for Wallon railway staff saying "Gant" in French accents, which occasionally ambushes you when you thought you were on top of it. Ghent is a lovely little city, if you've not been there. Ideal for wandering, but make sure to see the van Eyck triptych in the cathedral.
Yes, I've been before, once. Possibly doing some work there, too.* Depends how it goes this week.
Doing the click and zoom on this is pretty amazing:
http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/
* not changing jobs, meeting potential clients for current job.
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Fucking vendor calling me yet again and way after hours and on my (Gulf region) weekend. I can do nothing for you and you are about to lose a fucking sale. I used to love acquisitions.
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This train is nicer than the one last night. Same style compartment, but newer.
I could really go all the way to California like this, especially if I could drink like the Australians I saw on trains in Europe.
Naperville looks nicer than Aurora.
Forty minutes travel to the first corn field. Only 9 more hours of corn.
Since the fields aren't planted yet, maybe I should acknowledge the possibility of changing plans. They could be any kind of field.
West of Chicago the trains tend to be more comfortable, probably because people would rebel if they weren't since the distances are so much longer. In coach, at least in my experience, there's more legroom and space.
There's a Sandwich, IL. That Earl discovered everything.
183: I don't know what coach was like on the last train. I basically slept through it. I don't even recall any stops in Ohio but there must have been.
Some of these fields look to have been planted. Global warming, I suppose. Still, I have no personal knowledge of what they were planted with.
Memdota smells like a stagnant pond.
And the smell goes away as you get to the town center.
I've been to Sandwich IL! They have an antiques market.
Thinking about why this United story has staying power, I think it's because it's provided a conduit for everyone to publicly vent their hatred of United. Who hasn't thought, "I will never fly United again" after some petty act of hostility or some petty act of being screwed over. Mostly though, any individual act of evil United does isn't really large enough to garner national outrage (microaggression?), so you vent to your friends and family or maybe just swear to yourself about how shitty United is. Now we have a clear distillation of everything that makes United suck: 1) poor planning, 2) utter contempt for coach passengers, 3) shoddy problem solving that puts the customer last (along with just general shoddiness), 4) viciousness (usually less literal), and 5) a total unwillingness to even apologize for even blatant fuck-ups.
I think I should have made the general shoddiness into its own point, cheapness. United is clearly willing to skimp on anything that would make the flight even remotely pleasant for its economy passengers, including food on international flights.*
*One time flying to China they served us a cup o' instant noodles for breakfast, and nothing else.
The breakfast struppwaffles (sp?) aren't bad if you like candy for breakfast.
My "I will never fly United again" story: we had a flight from California to DC that was supposed to land around 11 p.m. EST or so. (I don't remember exactly when, but the point is, a late flight, and jet lag would be working against us.) They delayed us by one hour, and then two, and then two and a half, just stretching it out a little bit at a time but constantly reassuring us that we'd be leaving soon. In the end, we took off and landed about four and a half hour late (just under the legal limit before they'd have to cancel the flight and put us up for the night, or something). In a sense, they apologized. That apology took the form of a meal voucher. A $7 meal voucher that expired in 24 hours.
So, you know, not nearly as bad as being assaulted, but it felt like a personal insult at the time.
I would really like some aviation nerd to explain to me, in just the right level of detail to make if feel authoritative but not boring, why exactly it is that nearly 100 years into commercial aviation, there's still no business model for it that doesn't require immiserating passengers just to remain constantly on the brink of bankruptcy.
Surely there has got to be an inspiring long-read piece in it for someone who wants to find several such aviation nerds to interview, and put some heroes and villains in the story, and get us all excited for how awesome flying could be if only the industry could overcome this one conundrum, but hey, there's this new maverick on the scene with a plan for disruption...
... why exactly it is that nearly 100 years into commercial aviation, there's still no business model for it that doesn't require immiserating passengers just to remain constantly on the brink of bankruptcy.
I don't know what you're patience is with Yglesias, but he wrote on the topic.
I'm not an aviation nerd, but what I have read is that people will on average knowingly choose a worse but cheaper experience consistently. So, a race to the bottom in quality and in nickel-and-dime antagonism.
For long international flights, there is now the option of buying a tiny bit more legroom for a non-crazy amount of money on a bunch of airlines.
I've had United leave late on flights with zero explanation and the most blase attitude ever. One time they were inexplicably late and caused me to barely miss a connection to Beijing, their tone was "sucks for you, not our problem." (Second leg was through their partner Air Canada, who eventually got us on a later flight with another stop over somewhere else, and you could tell they were pretty pissed at United for not really being cooperative in helping out at any stage.)
I also once had a United flight not long after planes stopped serving snacks and started selling snacks where the flight attendant announced something like, "we don't have any snacks on sale for economy, but once we finish serving food to first class, we'll see if there's any left over and you can buy it." Everyone in coach started booing.*
*I got revenge by using the business class bathroom, which was right in front of my seat. A flight attendant saw me right as I was closing the door and told me to leave, but I pretended like I didn't speak English. After I sat down, we got a nasty announcement about how business class bathrooms were special and we plebs weren't to use them.
They have those waterproof bags for everybody else to pee in.
Galesburg is a very Team Instinct town. Four gyms, all yellow.
195: I dunno, it seems to be a US-specific problem. Even the budget airlines in Asia are a lot better than United et al.
Ryan Air and possibly other extreme budget Euro carriers are just as and possibly even more shitty. I have never flown Spirit in the US though.
How old are the planes on Asian budget airlines?
The link in 196 is quite good. Airlines are an interesting case economically; they're not quite "natural monopolies" like utilities, but they have a lot of similar features that lead to problems in competitive markets.
202: they built their fleets in the last 10 years, so probably very new indeed.
202
IME flying frontier and not spirit, they're similar in service to cheap European airlines but more expensive. Maybe it's the larger distances and lower population? Or maybe it's just America sucks.
I mean, having flown frontier and not spirit
I've been in Nebraska for an hour. Almost there.
IME the smaller airlines -- Alaska, Hawaiian, a little bit of JetBlue -- suck considerably less. Any airline can deliver a really good flight or a pretty bad one, but the big ones seem to deliver a worse average experience and more absolute outrageousness.
Nebraska's one of the greenish-brownish flat ones before you get to Chicago, right?
struppwaffles (sp?)
Once the Trump admin is done, Amtrak will be calling them the Struppwaffen SS.
210: I've definitely had considerably better experiences on Alaska than on the big carriers.
It seems like the airlines are in a similar position to what railroads were in before they declined, except airlines aren't going to get rid of passengers.* Fixed costs, fixed routes, dilemma of whether to run at below capacity because sometimes you've got to run anyway (to move planes around, keep a minimum number of routes up, etc.). I'd like to see an airline industry analysis that takes freight into account, though.
*Also, deregulation came at a different time and probably the comparison doesn't really work.
Meant to add that railroads are doing ok now, apparently, except it's almost all freight.
214: Yeah, I think both are examples of a general pattern that transportation of people is a really difficult thing to make money on in a competitive market regardless of mode. Which is why most modes tend to end up with a system other than a competitive private market. (Freight is different, for reasons that aren't totally clear to me.)
And, at least in the US, all modes currently benefit from some level of public subsidy at least in terms of infrastructure.
Freight is different, for reasons that aren't totally clear to me.
You could work for United.
Sausagely's piece pretty much got it right, I thought. The industry has contracted to where it can make a lot of money when times are good, but fixed costs are high and most people buy on price, so the airlines are mostly racing to the bottom on quality.
Freight was in bad shape on railroads too, but that's changed. I suspect largely because you can actually do a bunch of things to reshape how you handle freight that you can't do with people: specialized cars, containerization, more scheduling flexibility when lots of things you ship aren't alive, etc.
Under heavier regulation, lots of those things couldn't be done, so on that dimension deregulation really did help the industry. If I'd read the 20th century railroad books I meant to read when this was closer to my historical research field, I might have something useful to say.
221: Interesting. A comparative study of rail and air freight from this perspective would be really interesting.
Freight is mainly sold to businesses, passenger travel is sold to individual consumers who are less understanding / not repeat players?
Like if you fly a lot you want the airline to do things that reduce the total number of delays because averages matter to you. If you fly once a year you care about your flights and nothing else. Of course if you fly a lot then you won't be the one getting bumped, so there's a bit of selfishness there too.
But if you fly a lot, you're more likely to end up with the airline that offers the most service from where you live, so you're still not in a great place to pick based on quality.
So disappointed to have missed the Midwest train ride live-blogging. Good morning, America, how are ya?
It was surprisingly quick to get a Lyft at 12:30 a.m. in Lincoln.
196: Yglesias seems to be at his most glibertarian there, unfortunately. I normally have more patience for him than I do with this. "Decades' worth of evidence suggests we prefer cheap and safe to pleasant" - OK, but it's not like that's a law of physics, that's just a matter of how we've been shopping for the last couple decades, within the range of what was offered. Doesn't mean confort and being treated like a human being is BAD, it just means enough people haven't wanted to pay enough for it to make it economical. Some would call it a market failure, and some would say that regulation is actively a good thing in that case.
One thing I'm curious about is the overbooking thing.
It's simply not that uncommon for a ticketed passenger to not show up for a flight due to illness or some external change of plans. Customers also value the opportunity to reschedule flights for less than the full price of buying a brand new ticket. Meanwhile, the profit-maximizing strategy for first-class seats is generally to price them so high that they don't sell out, and then offer a few lucky passengers free upgrades -- immediately freeing up space in apparently overbooked economy cabins -- as a privilege of their advanced frequent flier status.
OK, but by how much? What's the average number of no-shows (or rather, percentage), and does it correlate with anything in particular? When people get bumped, how long is the normal wait until the next flight? How many people schedule flights with enough of a buffer on their schedule that losing a few hours or a day isn't a problem, and is there anything the airlines can do about that? Personally I'm kind of baffled by the concept. I've never missed a flight and never been in a position where I'd be OK with being bumped. In theory anything is worthwhile for enough money, but I often have work or some kind of commitment the day after the flight, and if I don't, it's because the flight is long enough that I really want a full day to decompress afterwards. But, (a) maybe I'm just being Pauline Kael about this and (b) I realize that no-showing or flexibility might be a lot more common for people at different places in their lives.
If an average of 30 percent of seats were empty and the only thing that helped was overbooking, fair enough, I can see how that would be a big problem for profit margins. If on the other hand the average was something like 5 percent, that seems like the kind of thing they can make up some way other than beating their passengers bloody, so I don't have much sympathy.
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