Obviously the airlines allow overbooking because not only it contributes their bottom-line by selling more seats than physically available, but also the extra benefits due to issuing compensation vouchers. Since each voucher would be only $100 dollars and be expired in 12-months, does that mean issuing more vouchers would easily create more business by selling more discounted tickets using vouchers? No matter whether the vouchers are transferable to friends/relatives or not.
Again, Cook County. Even if it were the legal norm, they likely wouldn't allow this to be admitted as evidence. Even in the most conservative court venues, past criminal records are almost never admissible in civil cases unless directly related to the matter in dispute. My guess on this is still $100-150k in damages and pain and suffering. $1-2.5 million in punitive or exemplary damages (not insured, btw). Plus attorney fees. And the more I think about it, the more I believe this one will actually proceed to jury trial (though settlement may happen before verdict) because the plaintiff has almost nothing to lose going that route, and at the very least brings a big bargaining chip to the table to discuss settlement.
This is why I fly JetBlue. They don't engage in overbooking practices, have funny and clever names for each aircraft in the fleet, and give free unlimited blue potato chips. Quite tasty!
That's fine, as long as you travel on JetBlue routes. What do you do for the other 80- 90% of your air travel?
I fly JetBlue and make short connections if they do not have destinations to the final point. Which is 5% of the time?
April 12, 2017 Good morning. My co-author Geoff sent me an email early yesterday suggesting I lead with with “the United Airlines incident” in that day’s newsletter. I declined, thinking furor over United’s action would soon pass. Wrong about that. United’s rough dragging of a passenger off a flight to Louisville has now joined Cecil the Lion and Justine Sacco as case studies in social media outrage. It didn’t help that the passenger was Asian, making the video top trending topic on Chinese social media site Weibo. Nor did it help that United CEO Oscar Munoz made such a ham-handed attempt at apology – saying he apologized “for having to re-accommodate” the passenger, then later sending a note to employees blaming the passenger for being “disruptive and belligerent.” Not until yesterday afternoon, after the company’s stock swoon threatened to wipe out over a billion dollars of market cap, did Munoz issue a proper apology, saying “it’s never too late to do the right thing.” I disagree; it was too late. I have some sympathy for Munoz. After suffering from a heart attack and receiving a transplant shortly after getting the top job in 2015, he’s made real progress turning around the troubled airline. Last year, he earned a spot (No. 20) on Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year list (read Shawn Tully’s profile here.) And responding to social media outrage is not something they teach at business school. Well, not yet, anyway. Nevertheless, it has become an inescapable reality of business leadership today. As Dov Seidman told the CEOs who attended the Fortune Global Forum in Rome last December, moral judgment declines with distance – we’re most passionate about things closest to us – but distance has disappeared in today’s world. As a result, an event like Monday’s rough “re-accomodation” is instantly at hand to everyone, everywhere. That puts a big burden on CEOs like Munoz; they have to take moral responsibility for countless acts over which they have little control. Can Munoz recover? It will take more than a single statement to convince people he’s sincere. The company says it is reviewing its policies, and change would help – overbooked flights are the bane of all frequent travelers. For others who want to learn from his example, the lesson is one Seidman delivered in Rome: in today’s connected world, leaders need empathy as much as they need expertise. “We need a new leadership playbook,” Seidman said. “In many ways, I think we have gone from the industrial age, when we hired brawn – hands – to a knowledge economy where we hired heads, and now I think we are entering the human economy where we hire hearts.” (You can watch Seidman’s full comments here.) Meanwhile, United’s competition is having fun at its expense on social media. “We beat the competition. Not you,” said a Southwest post. Delta stayed mum, however, still recovering from a storm-triggered meltdown that left many thousands of fliers, myself included, stranded last weekend. More news below. Alan Murray @alansmurray alan.murray@fortune.com
United bumps more passengers than any other large U.S. airline Involuntary denials of boarding, as they are formally dubbed, are rarely this contentious but are a fact of life in commercial air travel. Because a small share of passengers generally fail to turn up-often simply because their previous flight arrived late-companies usually offer a few more tickets for sale than they can actually accommodate, counting on no-shows to maximize the chances that a plane departs exactly at its full capacity. (The Economist)
PRWeek faces mini United Airlines–related crisis In the wake of United Airlines' PR nightmare of a week, trade publication PRWeek hasdrawn unwelcome attentionfor recently bestowing an honor on the carrier's CEO Oscar Munoz. To wit: In more innocent times – three weeks ago – PRWeek had praised Mr. Munoz thusly: Only two months and change after having undergone a heart transplant, Oscar Munoz returned full time in March 2016 to his role as CEO of United Airlines.(Ad Age)
Huh? They don't even fly to Europe and Asia. How can they cover 95% of your travel needs? Maybe your "travel" is to Orlando & Vegas?
Yes, I travel only domestically, which is what that guy did in this instance. I'd find a way to fly JetBlue. I hate United, and American, and all the rest. They suck.