Fook United Airlines

[CS1983]

^ Denninger disagrees:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231976

[theGinsue]

You're right, flying is not a right. However you do have rights when you enter into a contract. Which is what you do when you buy a ticket on a flying machine.

You're argument is saying that one is an entitled pussy if they chose to fight for their rights of a contract. If you paid me to fix your roof by a certain time and i didn't, would you be an entitled pussy for wanting it when I said I would?
I just fail to see the connection for expecting what you are entitled to in a contract and that making you an "entitled, lazy, effeminate, whiny, complaining" person.

Because I should would hate to feel entitled...


Oh that? That comes directly from the United Contract of Carriage.

^ Denninger disagrees:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231976

As someone who has been having to travel by air for work a lot these last couple of years (in fact, I just got in from Baltimore/Washington last night) I totally agree with everything in Scankers comment as well as the linked article.

Due to overbooking and other issues caused by the airline (ye, it was United) I was delayed a full day for a business trip and on the second day they were cancelling the flight. I had to get overseas to catch a flight that took over a month to coordinate and which were made only twice/week. My company built in a day and a half extra in case of problems. The second delay would have prevented my team from making the next flight. A lot of prodding and use of .gov authority got United to make other arrangements for us. It was a pain and shouldn't have come to that.

On the morning of our return flight to the states we were notified by United that our flight from Dallas to Colo Spr was cancelled. After being away for a month we were going to have to stay in Dallas overnight before we could get home. I used the hour I had to work with to get my company to rebook my return through American and was able to get home on time. Only 2 of us were able to do that, the rest had to keep their original flughts and stayed in Dallas at our companies expense.

On my recent trip, I flew into Baltimore/Washington airport where I was met by my boss (he was already out there). We then had to drive 3 hours to our destination which got us to our hotel @ 9pm. We had to meet the rest of our team at 0730 the next morning before we met up with others for significantly prior coordinated activities. A flight delay, particularly another full day delay, would have eliminated my being able to participate in what occured.

I can only think of 1 instance out of over a dozen where United didn't cancel or delay our flights. I prefer to fly American when I can these days. Even then, every flight I've taken these last couple of years has had full flights. Delays, overbooking, etc. only make the problem worse for passengers yet the airlines won't adjust or prepare for these events.

Now, for non-business "pleasure travel", if I spent $10k+ to take a week of vacation to take my family to Disney World and got delayed by a day then not only have I lost valuable vacation time but hard earned money to boot. While I know that the airlines have their standard disclaimers, when I enter into a contract with them for a price to provide a service at a certain time/place, once they accept my payment, so long as I live up to my end of the contract, they should be required to honor that contract - period.

Just my $.02 on the topic.

[Aloha_Shooter]

As someone who has been having to travel by air for work a lot these last couple of years (in fact, I just got in from Baltimore/Washington last night) I totally agree with everything in Scankers comment as well as the linked article.

Due to overbooking and other issues caused by the airline (ye, it was United) I was delayed a full day for a business trip and on the second day they were cancelling the flight. I had to get overseas to catch a flight that took over a month to coordinate and which were made only twice/week. My company built in a day and a half extra in case of problems. The second delay would have prevented my team from making the next flight. A lot of prodding and use of .gov authority got United to make other arrangements for us. It was a pain and shouldn't have come to that.

On the morning of our return flight to the states we were notified by United that our flight from Dallas to Colo Spr was cancelled. After being away for a month we were going to have to stay in Dallas overnight before we could get home. I used the hour I had to work with to get my company to rebook my return through American and was able to get home on time. Only 2 of us were able to do that, the rest had to keep their original flughts and stayed in Dallas at our companies expense.

On my recent trip, I flew into Baltimore/Washington airport where I was met by my boss (he was already out there). We then had to drive 3 hours to our destination which got us to our hotel @ 9pm. We had to meet the rest of our team at 0730 the next morning before we met up with others for significantly prior coordinated activities. A flight delay, particularly another full day delay, would have eliminated my being able to participate in what occured.

I can only think of 1 instance out of over a dozen where United didn't cancel or delay our flights. I prefer to fly American when I can these days. Even then, every flight I've taken these last couple of years has had full flights. Delays, overbooking, etc. only make the problem worse for passengers yet the airlines won't adjust or prepare for these events.

Now, for non-business "pleasure travel", if I spent $10k+ to take a week of vacation to take my family to Disney World and got delayed by a day then not only have I lost valuable vacation time but hard earned money to boot. While I know that the airlines have their standard disclaimers, when I enter into a contract with them for a price to provide a service at a certain time/place, once they accept my payment, so long as I live up to my end of the contract, they should be required to honor that contract - period.

Just my $.02 on the topic.

I travel quite a bit too -- for both business and pleasure -- and usually go on United. In counterpoint, I would estimate that my flights on United have been delayed at MOST 25% of the time and most of those delays were due to weather. I haven't had a flight cancellation on United for several years. The closest I came to that was a trip I took to Sumatra a couple years ago where the smoke from illegal fires caused flight cancellations for 2 days across 4 airports -- including my day of departure. Because I was a no-show for the United flight from Singapore (Silk Air only took care of getting me from Sumatra to Singapore the following day), United made my ticket invalid and the only way to fix it would have been to leave the airport to go to their ticket counter. Going through customs and entering the country just to talk to the Ticketing counter and then coming back through Security to "leave" the country was a non-starter for a variety of reasons.

Instead, I got ahold of a United agent in Chicago who got me out on the next flight about 90 minutes later. They worked the coordination with Silk Air to get my bags and gave me the baggage info on the plane as they were already boarding when I got to the gate. No additional charges since I had documentation that the change was due to circumstances beyond my control but the agent really busted arse to get me home (as opposed to the Singapore Airlines counter agent detailed as their out-of-hours rep who couldn't be bothered to do anything other than tell me to go outside the airport to talk to Ticketing).

By the way, I had similar good service from them in rebooking when we had the Snowmageddon in 2006 that shut down Colorado airports just before Christmas. The fare had been sold by US Air but was being flown by United -- US Air left me hanging while the United agent I talked to understood the situation, got her supervisor on the phone along with the US Air agent and HIS supervisor and worked it all out. I had figured I was going to miss Christmas and just wanted to let my mother know what day to pick me up, United got me out the very next day.

They are far from perfect but they are also nowhere near the villains I'm seeing in the press and on the Internet today.

[Martinjmpr]

^ Denninger disagrees:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231976

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. [shrug]

He's free to start his own airline and institute whatever policies he wants.

[CS1983]

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. [shrug]

He's free to start his own airline and institute whatever policies he wants.

What Denninger wants is simply for laws to be enforced... Airlines, Medical costs, etc. I bet you'd like him if you read his blog. He has a ton of business experience already, so it's not necessary for him to do what you say. He's already done it in other contexts.

[Aloha_Shooter]

^ Denninger disagrees:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231976

I really don't care what Denninger says. He gets referred to like his blog is written on stone tablets. It's not.

The good doctor's ticket carries rights spelled out in the Contract of Carriage which DOES give the operator some rights to deny him boarding. Where I draw the line on how they handled it was that they boarded him when they let him cross the gate threshold and get on the plane. I know they referred to "denying him boarding" when they first referenced this incident but they always talk about deboarding when they talk about having passengers get off the plane.

Had this been a case where the doctor was complaining about involuntary deboarding after he notified them about issues it creates in medical treatments for patients and he acted calmly and rationally, it would be one thing. The video that went viral didn't show any of the prior situation (as these videos rarely do) but it DID show him going into hysterics and struggling violently. That created an entirely different situation legally and either way, he didn't have an absolute right to that seat on that plane.