Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes

Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by lutorm on Thursday April 27, 2017 @07:47PM (#14215814)

Well in this case the market is distorted by the fact that regulations allow the airline to not let people board for a much smaller cost. If the airline didn't have that legal out, they would be forced to negotiate terms with each passenger whose contract they wanted to break.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by desdiv on Friday April 28, 2017 @05:40AM (#14218074)

Without regulations the airlines will just put a "we reserve the right to uniterally terminate this contract with a full refund" clause in their contracts.

Status quo: offer increasingly higher flight vouchers until you hit the federally mandated rate of 400% ticket price cash rebate, capped to $1350.

Without regulations: offer increasingly higher flight vouchers until you hit 100% ticket price refund cap.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by douche on Thursday April 27, 2017 @08:28PM (#14215991)

They didn't even hit that limit before they sent in the goons in this case, though.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by lutorm on Thursday April 27, 2017 @09:08PM (#14216175)

The actual limit is 4x the price of the ticket, capped at $1350, so it could very well have been down in the $400 range.

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by onli on Friday April 28, 2017 @06:04AM (#14218160)

There is no limit. It is a minimum, and it does not work like you seem to think it does (if you blame regulations, which is how I read that comment). See https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/...:

> For example, an involuntarily bumped traveler who arrives to his final destination more than two hours late (fours internationally) is entitled to an amount worth 400% of his one-way fare (capped at a maximum of $1,350).

There are no regulations forbidding United to offer more when a passenger is already seated, and that passenger thus can't be legally bumped (apart from because of safety reasons maybe).

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Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes by lutorm on Friday April 28, 2017 @02:38PM (#14221926)

I am well aware of how it works. What I said is that the incentives to offer more than what they are legally required to offer by the IDB regulations (which does have an upper limit) are significantly lessened since the IDB rules give them a "get out of contract free" card for that amount.

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