Re:Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities
by lazyasciiart on Thursday May 11, 2017 @07:03PM
(#14320236)
Multiple human errors. Once she was on the plane, she found (unsurprisingly) that her seat was taken. A steward on the plane looked at her boarding pass and found her another seat.
Re:Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities
by thaumasiotes on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:05PM
(#14319899)
I bought a gift card at IKEA in Shanghai for 100 yuan once. Shortly afterward, I visited IKEA in Palo Alto and asked a cashier how much was on the card. She scanned it and reported a hundred dollars. I asked her to confirm that, which she did, and then she offered me a "receipt" of the scan, which I accepted.
The printout correctly showed that the card contained 100 CNY. I've thought of IKEA ever since as a store where the cash registers are smarter than the cashiers.
Re:Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities
by Scoundreller on Thursday May 11, 2017 @09:19PM
(#14320793)
Is the cashier "dumb" if their screen reported $100?
Re:Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities
by thaumasiotes on Thursday May 11, 2017 @11:10PM
(#14321140)
It didn't, though.
Re:Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities
by seanmcdirmid on Thursday May 11, 2017 @10:14PM
(#14320966)
I'm really surprised a Chinese bought IKEA card could be used in the USA anyways. These things usually rent transferable between countries.
Re:Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities
by thaumasiotes on Thursday May 11, 2017 @11:13PM
(#14321151)
I can't guarantee that it was usable -- I didn't try to buy anything with it, and for IKEA US to sell to me in CNY they'd have to have an exchange rate set up -- but it was definitely readable.
On the other hand, when I asked the recipient (it was a wedding gift) about it later, he reported that his wife had recorded it as having an appropriate-given-the-exchange-rate quantity of USD, so I suspect it was in fact usable.
Re:Air carriers are still failing people with disabilities
by seanmcdirmid on Friday May 12, 2017 @03:20AM
(#14322044)
Strange. This is then a sure way around Chinese currency controls, given that the RMB isn't convertible.
Anecdotally, I had a standby ticket recently when my seat was reassigned to a paying customer, although I still had a boarding pass for that seat. I was halfway down the jet bridge before the gate agent realized that my ticket had been revoked.
I imagine it's second nature for gate agents to let passengers through, and one lapse in judgement can cause the United incident, despite the software showing that the ticket was invalid.