Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes
by kwhitefoot on Friday April 28, 2017 @04:09PM
(#14222664)
Contracts are irrelevant here because there is no competition in that market, you have to accept the contract or walk to your destination. For contracts to be meaningful the parties have to be of comparable power and both parties must have the opportunity to choose a competing good or service. This is plainly not the case here.
Re:Southwest to Stop Overbooking as United Uproar Echoes
by wutbrodo on Saturday April 29, 2017 @02:44PM
(#14228046)
Sure? Except that has nothing to do with what I was talking about. The irrelevant statement here is yours.
I was specifically rebutting the claim that airlines are getting "special treatment" [by the government] by being allowed to sell services they don't fulfill. The service they're selling is not "a guaranteed flight".
Words have meaning and facts matter, beyond "Airlines bad, pick a side". It's possible to think that they're anti-competitive and shitty without making entirely false claims about them (as the gp comment did).
Does the contract of carriage say the service they're selling is a guaranteed flight? Spoiler: No.
I hate the air travel experience as much as the next guy, but for the life of me I can't understand the derangement that seems to take hold of people when they start talking about. All else held equal, reducing airline costs (for example, by increasing utilization as with overbooked flights) brings prices down. It reminds me of when everyone I knew started complaining about airlines charging for luggage. When I'd ask them "I never fly with luggage, why should I bear the cost (fuel, opportunity cost, etc) of you packing too much", the most I got was some sputtering about how they didn't see why prices would be affected, even from people who I know knew much better.
> The boner people on HN have for objectivism really does get quite old.
Don't confuse your economic illiteracy with other people's support of objectivism. The perspective you're describing isn't even particularly libertarian, let alone Objectivist (and no, I'm not personally a fan of either of those philosophies).