Make spurious 'safety' cancellations expensive, very expensive.

As a sibling comment says it would be just swept under the rug until planes start to fall.

This makes no sense at all. If I order a pizza and it doesn't show up the reason it doesn't show up is completely irrelevant; they still owe me my money back.

Humans don't work like tech, so adding more and more layers doesn't help really, and I haven't found any organizational form which can inherently prevent humans from being human, it just doesn't exist. For example, all the "paperwork" around safety only works if humans are actually interested in maximizing safety and not just filling out papers.

I just hope they don't drain additional time & people to check into each of these "safety issues" now, thinning out the crowd who will also check into actual incidents ...

which is already illegal, and has consequences. The airline will probably lose reputation and business if the public catches wind of it. The exception for cancellation should not have been in place, except as a way for airlines to get out of the obligations but also allow law makers to be seen to be doing something. Basically theater.

All this says to me is that the government does nothing to prevent hugely unsafe airlines from operating.

The cancellation loophole seems fine to me, it's the followthrough that's concerning. What am I missing here?

Thing is, you, as an external observer, can't tell.

There are a zillion things that slightly increase risk. If a manager ignores a couple to avoid having a black mark due to costing the company money its very unlikely to bite him in any way that can be pinned on him. But the combination of a very large number of these little decisions will eventually result in a crash.

And before you ask, no, saying "well you just tell everyone they must take no risks at all or its prison time" is not the answer as that will basically kill the airlines as a form of mass transit, leading to everyone taking the more dangerous car trips. There's always something more that can be done to reduce risk.

Asking because flying passengers on unsafe planes is already illegal.

But more seriously, I think the sibling posts are right here: A plane crash is more than a monetary risk: In the worst case, managers of the airline could be criminally liable for lost lives.

Do you have any clue how dangerous Soviet passenger aircraft and their flights were, compared to their Western counterparts?

The West has largely regulated away airline crashes - the last in the US was in 2009, and it's down 95% in fatalities-per-passenger in the last two decades or so. Stuff like the 1500 hour rule certainly weren't industry initiatives.

That’s hard to assess on an individual level, especially with how rare crashes are today; confidently stating it did nothing is hard to support. On a collective level, the impact of the entire set of regulations on safety is very clear.

> was applied as supposed remedy

No. The post-Buffalo changes included some direct changes like the rules on pilot fatigue. They also included some proactive changes like the 1500 rule.

We don’t have to wait for a crash to make things safer.

There are countless examples of this, but the most transparent I've come across is Chernobyl.

This casual cynicism regarding markets is dangerous and infectious because instead of focusing on fixing problems that have solutions via the levers of government, people give up completely and then nothing is ever made better. We need more participation in government, not less. When you toss up anything bad as “that’s the free market folks!”, people have no recourse. They can’t vote away airlines. So you end up directing action toward something that can’t be actioned upon. It’s misdirection.

Also claiming that “this is the free market” ignores the vast civilian infrastructure that is built and maintained by the State and regulatory agencies and practices that have been created. Not to mention bailouts in the past of bankrupted airlines and such. Airlines in particular are not a good example of “that’s the free market”, and even so markets don’t operate in a vacuum, they serve at the behest of the people and the government.

I don't think this follows, and I think it's because you're missing a piece of what's going on here.

You seem to be coming to this from a perspective of "obviously, a healthy system has a market with sensible regulations on it."

That's a world away from where most people (or at least, the loudest people) who criticize regulations are coming from, which is basically, "Unregulated free markets solve all problems, and government only creates problems."

If you feel like you're seeing a lot of cynicism directed at "free markets", this is likely why: it's a reaction against these extremely vocal "drown-government-in-a-bathtub" types.

Thing is, there are generally two different things that people can mean when they say "free market":

1. A "market economy", as contrasted with a "command economy"—ie, more or less the way the US does things, as opposed to the way the Soviet Union did things.

2. An "ideal free market", as described by Adam Smith, which can, in theory, ensure that many systems find a stable, efficient equilibrium that balances consumer desires with producer desires.

The problem is that, however much many (particularly of the Libertarian bent) wish to believe in it, the latter is not real. It is a thought experiment, and it requires a bunch of conditions that don't always apply (eg, perfect information, commoditization, etc). The other problem, of course, is that as I said, the two are often called "free markets" interchangeably without clarification, which leads to much confusion.

American style libertarian absolutists are usually not very subtle, sometimes even clownish like she was.

Thing is, he recognized them as theoretical. Too many of the people parroting them think they were meant to be applied directly to the real world, as if we had an actual spherical market cow in a vacuum.

Not only this, but large parts of the current economy only function because the conditions don't apply.

E.g., we know that humans don't make perfectly rational decisions but are influenced by all kinds of biases, etc. And we have the entire advertising and marketing sector that does nothing else than exploit those biases.

Yet at the same time, whenever there is the risk of new regulation being introduced, the fantasy of the perfectly informed, fully rational consumer is pulled out of the box...

Yea but that’s bad because it’s unsophisticated and it also creates people who start to believe that the market mechanic is a bad thing or the source of their problems, when it’s not. This creates bad ideas, cynicism because you can’t take action against this invisible market, or people lose interest in participating in government.

> The other problem, of course, is that as I said, the two are often called "free markets" interchangeably without clarification, which leads to much confusion.

That’s the fault of the author.

Well, that and all the government spending on aviation in WWII.

Which may be reasonable as a matter of policy. Increase ticket prices, hopefully reduce delays, and provide compensation when delays happen anyway. That may be a reasonable tradeoff but not sure everyone would agree.

Not so sure about that. Remember, the airline industry used to be very regulated and it was an absolutely wonderful experience.

The very young might not have experienced it, but flying was really great. No extra fees for anything, everything was included. Service and food for the whole plane was better than one gets in business class today. Flights were not jam packed full all the time, there was plenty of space to stretch and always space for your luggage. Plenty of knee room even in the cheapest seats. Flying was great.

Then it got deregulated and it has been a race to the bottom ever since. Less and less amenities, less space, even less space, every little thing is an extra fee, every flight is jam packed full, seats are within inches of each other, no room for your carryon because every square inch of space has been oversold, passengers getting bumped regularly due to oversold flights. Flying is miserable and I'd rather never do it again.

It reads to me like this law was intended to provide additional compensation to passengers who are delayed. The EU has something similar.

If you want less screws in pizzas, maybe you should petition your representatives in government [who we've paid off to ignore the issue]

In fact, we'd support any legislative action to subsidize investment into improving the rates of screws in pizzas across the industry because we care about your well-being so much [as long as there's no oversight over how those funds are actually used, papa needs a new Ford F150]

I've made about $1400 from delayed flights in the last 3 years

In the US, I suspect that pretty much any personnel who observed this could raise it as an issue through an FAA safety reporting program. There are some protections for reporters.

(These programs, and the people and organizations who participate in them, are a big part of why aviation is as safe as it is. It's something a lot of people seem to take very seriously. It's pretty inspiring, IMHO, and if only we could collectively believe in other common goals like this, and execute as well.)

The airline isn't being "punished" - they're being required to either complete a contract, or to compensate their counterparty for their failure to complete.

To take the example upthread, if the pizzaiolo drops a screw in my pizza, the resulting safety issue doesn't void the contract; he has to go off and make me a new pizza, or give my money back. It's not a punishment. If he can't complete on the contracts he makes, he has to stop selling pizzas or go broke.

I don't know any good reason why airlines shouldn't be subject to normal contract law.

In both cases, they were forced to pay out in arbitration after the arbitor determined that their stated causes were false (e.g. providing the tail number for a different aircraft that was legitimately delayed) , but there was no penalty for lying.

In such an environment, it's quite rational for them to lie and deny.

"Wrong" reason is subjective. Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially. Every hole in that increases costs far beyond the refunds themselves further down the line.

Air travel is not a high margin, luxury product, it's a lot margin mass market product with tons of competition - ergo costs are cut wherever possible. When you force airlines to take on costs for moral reasons, they basically are obligated to find as narrow an application of the moral reasoning as possible to keep costs down.

Wait. I don’t understand you. “Nonrefundable” means to me that you who bought a ticket can’t decide to not fly and ask for your money back.

If the airline for whatever reason decides to not fly the route, or doesn’t have the capacity then that is a different thing altogether. Are you arguing that it is okay for an airline to take your money, do not provide you with the service promised and keep your money?

This is 100% false. Southwest Airlines is one of the most profitable airlines in the US and their refund policy for refundable flights is a full refund up to 10 mins before the flight. For nonrefundable flights you get full credit if you cancel up to 10 mins before your flight, with no additional fees.

During the pandemic, ALL airlines moved to full credit with no change fees if you cancelled your flight. Previously they would have absurd $200 change fees or loss of your flight.

The idea that airlines can’t survive with flexible, consumer friendly policies is a lie. Things like the check in fees or fuel surcharge are pure profit.

What people forget is companies are in competition, if every airline is forced to refund ticks then the industry simply reaches a new equilibrium with very slightly higher ticket prices. However, if any airline defects to worse customer service they all end up doing the same. Thus the need for customer focused regulations.

Flight credits expire (with US carriers, typically in 12 months, sometimes within only 3 months (Spirit), with European carriers, sometimes up to 3 years), and cannot be transferred to any other passenger [0], unlike even airmiles; many passengers are unaware of both of those and airlines do not point it out, and rely on the fact that passengers may not realize till the credit has expired.

Just because an airline only initially offers (restricted, expiring) travel credits, doesn't mean much; in some cases [1] passengers may be entitled to an actual money-back refund: (a) canceled flight b) passenger has documented medical circumstance c) cancellations due to Covid d) possibly other circumstance).

Southwest in 3/2022 unveiled its long-awaited new fare category "Wanna Get Away Plus" whose key perk is the ability to transfer flight credits, which Southwest calls travel funds (which sounds like intentionally misleading language, but anyway). But again, SW charge more for WGA+.

> Southwest Airlines... refund policy for refundable flights is a full refund up to 10 mins before the flight.

But that's the minority case: only Southwest's Anytime and higher fares are (money-back-)refundable, and they are typically way more expensive (2.5-4x) than non-refundable WGA fares. I can't find data but AFAIK most SW non-business passengers are WGA fares.

So the statement:

>> Tickets are nonrefundable because otherwise the network doesn't work, financially.

is in the general case true.

(One well-known travel hack with SWA for frequent travelers who didn't know their departure dates 3 weeks in advance used to be to buy 3+ different non-refundable tickets spaced out by say a week each, then refund whichever tickets you didn't end up needing. This was still cheaper than one Anytime fare.)

  [0]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2022/03/24/southwest-flights-new-fare-wanna-get-away-plus/7143951001/
  [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/advice/2020/10/09/flight-vouchers-yours-expiring-soon-what-to-do/5907794002/

Looking at a random domestic flight. The difference between the three tiers are about $30-$45 each.

Never buy Basic. But if you at least by the middle tier, while the tickets aren’t refundable, you can change the tickets without paying a fee or cancel a flight and get a credit that’s good for year.

The network works fine with people cancelling and changing flights all of the time.

I read somewhere that only 5% of seats sold on Delta are basic. I get it. It’s meant for people who are price sensitive. But aren’t those the ones who can least afford to lose money if something happens?

Anecdata, but I believe most “basic” tickets on the big US airlines were paid for by someone other than the flyer. If an individual themselves were price sensitive, they’d fly a budget airline like say Spirit more than likely.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

I've had a customer rep openly admit to me that they don't expect that anyone should ever actually fly this fare, and strongly discourage them for "satisfaction reasons".

Yet another weasely practice I found out the hard way recently was that some airlines rules (e.g. JetBlue) intentionally restrict it so that if one leg on a return ticket is Basic Economy, the other one must be too (even if it's priced $$ higher, as was in my case. It tooks me 2hrs of searches mysteriously failing when I tried to checkout ("Rule XXX does not allow this itinerary" and then it invalidates your entire flight search incl. seat assignments). Like the website couldn't tell you upfront. I called the support number and offered to show them a screenshot of the price difference and they didn't care. It was intentionally impossible to find the cheapest roundtrip price for my itinerary on their own website for any economy search, because their internal search engine typically shows the "cheapest economy fare" which will invariably tend to be basic economy for one segment; and of course this result is garbage if you have bags, which their engine doesn't even allow you specify. So you use a third-party OTE search engine.)

It's amazing the number of opaque anti-consumer practices the US airline industry gets away with.

The only legit use-case for a Basic Economy fare is a price-sensitive last-minute passenger who's 100% sure of their travel date(s)/one-way and has no luggage. Essentially what standby (or compassionate fares) used to be back in the 1990s, before the industry quietly killed those off.

The laws are basicaly made by those companies.

There have been various court cases to clarify and strengthen the regulations.

It will take another 5 years probably for the Canadian regulations to have a serious effect which gives the airlines plenty of time to shaft customers in another manner.

Then the regulators should be asking why there are so many safety issues? Seems like by the airlines' own admission, this is a perfect ground for a full investigation and penalties in case the issues are found to be misclassified under the category of safety.

Personally I believe they do almost nothing. Food born illness is pretty common and almost impossible to trace unless it is a wide spread outbreak.

Many cities only inspect a food establishment every 2-3 years and in some cases as long as 5 years.

I think reputation, and economics play a larger factor in safety then government inspections. Dirty places making their customers ill tend to close long before the government inspectors come around.

There is regulation and there are consequences of not following the spirit of the regulation (most focus seems to be on compliance to the letter of the law and avoiding to do anything beyond that ignoring the spirit of the law). Consequences don't seem to be particularly deterring in much cases; the offending company pays a penalty, no executive goes to jail and people forget about it soon. Unless these executives get jail time, there won't be any fear of consequences.

Regulation works just fine when done properly, and I’d like more of it here in NZ. I’d like the supermarket monopoly broken up via regulation. I’d also like the building supplies and fuels racket broken up.

If you have any interest, check out the below link for a great piece of legislation. It protects NZ consumers and effectively puts a warranty on everything you buy here.

Another great bit of regulation is what was fine to our telecommunications industry. We have gone from a trash copper network to an excellent fibre network that is fast and inexpensive to use - all via regulation, investment and legislation.

https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/general-help/consumer...

These outlandish claims wouldn't work nearly as well as they do if claims of safety didn't cause a large part of the population to turn off their brain and side with whoever's making the claim regardless of the details.

Safety is often used as one of our modern analogs of "god's will."