This is how you get people to "Volunteer" to give up their seats

[RamblingRose]

(sorry if this has already been posted.)

Why Delta Air Lines Paid Me $11,000 Not To Fly To Florida This Weekend
Laura Begley Bloom, Forbes Contributor

On Friday morning, I was flying from New York City to Florida with my husband and daughter. The bad weather had passed, so I thought we had escaped the wrath.

After hours of delays, Delta Airlines started offering money for volunteers to give up their tickets on our overbooked flight, which had 60 (sixty!) standby passengers hoping to get a seat. I didn’t flinch. My husband and daughter and I were headed to Fort Lauderdale to see our relatives, and — as far as I was concerned — nothing would hold us back.

When the compensation for volunteers got to $900 a ticket in gift cards (American Express, Target, Macy’s and so on), my husband convinced me to consider the offer. I thought it was too low to delay our vacation, but our plans were flexible, so I said I was open to the idea. My husband approached the gate agent and offered to give up our seats for $1,500 apiece. She countered: $1,350 each.

Other frustrated passengers were yelling at the staff and crying over vexed travel plans. Somehow, when an airline is offering you and your family $4,050, missing a flight doesn’t seem so bad. We could have also scored a free hotel room near the airport and complimentary dinner, but we live about 10 minutes from LaGuardia, so we volunteered to give up our seats and headed home with a big chunk of change and confirmed seats for a Saturday flight.

They continued to volunteer to get bumped on all subsequent flights


[link:https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2017/04/09/why-delta-air-lines-paid-me-11000-not-to-fly-to-florida-this-weekend/#225b54e94de1|

[PoliticAverse]

1. Apparently on the United flight at least one person offered their seat for $1,800 cash. n/t

[sdfernando]

2. United should have taken that deal

I'm sure they think their reputation is worth $1800....but then again maybe not.

[PoliticAverse]

4. That would have been "bargain of the century" level. n/t

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. That seems to be pretty damn greedy, sort of thing a real asshole would do. How long is that flight

about an hour?

[athena]

5. It's not United that's greedy but the person who thinks a day's worth of

lost productivity is worth $1,800?

Welcome to ignore.

[ronnie624]

8. Only the rich are allowed to be geedy.

Of course in that case it's not greed. It's capitalism.

[raccoon]

32. You got that right. nt

[gratuitous]

6. Greedy? How so?

Is it greedy to work the best deal for yourself? If United thinks it got a bargain to get you to leave your seat for a thousand dollars, would you say, "Oh no, that's just too much. Make it three fifty and we'll go our separate ways and both be happy." Similarly, if you're shopping around for flights taking off tomorrow and you can't find anything less than $800, do you expect the airline to say, "Oh, it's you, The_Casual_Observer! Sorry for the high cost of a plane ticket you need on such short notice. You probably have a really good reason for not shopping for a ticket before today. Let's cut it down to a far more reasonable $200, okay?"

It's bargaining at the most elemental level: The passenger has something of value that United wants, a seat on the plane. What is worth to the passenger? He paid $400 for it a couple of months ago. Now United wants it back, and it wants that seat quite desperately at the last possible moment before take-off. If you don't think United would cut you a deal the day before you wanted to fly, why should you cut United a deal minutes before flight time?

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. It's trying to take advantage of a bad situation. It's bullshit.

I know it's all about trying to screw the system at every turn, but it's bullshit.


Oh! My ship just came in, did you hear that announcement! I'll demand $1800 in CASH that's what I'll do! Maybe they will settle for $1500!!! In CASH!!!

It just so happens that they never give out that kind of money for "volunteers" the person was simply a pest getting in the way, wasting the agents time.

[gratuitous]

10. Whose bad situation? United's?

In United's case, they had 200 seats on their plane. They sold 204 seats, and they knew they sold 204 seats. They offered a deal to the entire plane, and four people gave up their tickets. Then United decided they needed four more seats available to fly their people down to Louisville. This bad situation was entirely of United's own making, and they're in the best position to do something about it all on their own. But they didn't offer people a good enough incentive to give up their seats, even though they have ample means to do so.

This system didn't suddenly get put in place yesterday. It's the way things have been for decades, and it has changed mostly at the behest of the major airlines, who have only grudgingly allowed for the most minor reforms in favor of the flying public. I'm not inclined to feel very sorry for United getting the short end of the stick for once. The system they've built operates in their favor just about every other time.

[The_Casual_Observer]

14. Yeah, United's situation. I would guess that they have no authorization at the gate to hand out wads

of cash to every guy that demands their "price", whatever they figure their time is worth. Clearly, anybody who's day is worth $1800 in cash would know that they are getting in the way and wasting the agents time with a stupid demand like that.

[gratuitous]

17. The situation is entirely of United's own making

Sorry if I don't have any tears left for United having to lay out 20 seconds worth of their 2016 income because they don't know how to count and they sold more tickets than they had seats on the plane. What other business gets to sell goods it doesn't have, and then gets to blame its customers for buying too much?

[The_Casual_Observer]

20. You figure that they ought to freely hand out substantial amounts of cash on demand when

something like this happens? Keep a fat till and coach the agents in the art of negotiation? There are limits, as it was those people were offered $1000 credit, apparently that what they can do.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. If the alternative is sending goons onto the plane to drag people off by force?

Yes.

Trust me, in terms of stock valuation and PR that $1800 is looking like a pretty good deal for United about now.

[The_Casual_Observer]

25. Clearly, a number of bad decisions were made. My guess is that they won't be so cavalier about

kicking people out of their seats in the future, regardless of the "rules".

[FBaggins]

40. Yes... that's exactly what they should do

Keep in mind that it happens in reverse all the time. As the plane fills up (compared to where they expect ticket sales to be at that point), the price they charge also goes up. If they're having trouble filling the plane... the price goes down.

The value of each incremental seat varies depending on the demand for that seat and the time remaining before departure. If the plane needs to leave and they actually have negative seats? The value of each of them rises rapidly.

Just like when they're selling tickets... the airlines should have to pay the market price.

[JCanete]

11. on one level I hear what you're saying. I'm not sure it makes it better to just reward the greediest

people, but that does seem to be how our society works.

On another level though, it is offering to sell one's seat for what it is worth, to an airline, that like all corporations, functions at an incredibly greedy level. Why should we feel particularly bad when because of their practices, they end up sometimes having to let a passenger cash in? And missing a flight is a huge discomfort typically. If it isn't for a certain passenger in a certain circumstance, well good for that passenger. If another one had had to give that seat up that compensation might have been totally justified for what it was costing them, whether from their very slim travel window because of the need to not miss work...etc.

I do think we need to be a culture that fosters less personal greediness, but I think that one needs to start from the top, the policing of the corporate machinery, before everyday people are expected to turn down a payout from one such company because it " just isn't right."

That said, exploiting actually small businesses, is incredibly distasteful to me. People do it with threats of yelp reviews, or other nasty things to leverage what they want. This story doesn't exactly rise to that behavior though, and United isn't exactly a small business. I know that makes me inconsistent, because I'm not torn up about a huge corporation being "exploited" while I would be offended by behavior that hurt a little guy. But then I trust that the big corporation has its personal interests well spoken for. It would be hard for it to be taken advantage of by a single individual unless it were in-fact in the wrong, and likely to run into a public back-lash if it didn't make things "right."

[FBaggins]

34. Actually... they would be rewarding the LEAST greedy

If you think about it, it's simple economics. Surely we can agree that virtually anyone on the flight would take the deal at a million dollars, right?

When they offered $800 and nobody took it, that's clearly saying that everyone felt that their time was worth more to them than that. The price should rise until four people are willing to take the deal. Those would actually be the four who were willing the take the smallest amount (and therefore would be the least greedy)

[JCanete]

35. right, I'm with you on that.

[Ilsa]

13. The people who are flying coach are the ones getting bumped,

Not the first class customers. If that person flying coach decides that his seat is worth that in the alternative, why should you have a problem with that? They had to change their plans to accomodate an airline and someone who is desperate for the seat.

Maybe that person's time delay is worth $1,800. If a professional bills at $300/hour, then a six hour delay is actually worth $1,800.

[pangaia]

28. WOW !!!

[delisen]

9. At $3000 for a boarded passenger to give up a seat, United would have gotten a bargain.

[gratuitous]

15. But apparently we're supposed to weep for United

I mean, $3,000 for them is, what, nearly 45 seconds of their 2016 income*? No, far better to send in a group of thugs to forcibly remove a passenger and drag him off the plane. Let that be a lesson to the rest of the cattle lining up for a seat on one of United's planes. You're not worth even 45 seconds of the airline's time.

*http://newsroom.united.com/2017-01-17-United-Airlines-Reports-Full-Year-and-Fourth-Quarter-2016-Performance

[Warren DeMontague]

30. These stories always bring out a certain.... personality type.

They're the same people who tell the granny in the wheelchair who is doing 10 years for the pot plant in her basement, that she should have followed THE RULES.

The family with the baby whose face gets half blown off by the SWAT team's flash grenade, because their house got raided over a 10 dollar bag of weed, should have followed THE RULES!

You get shot by a cop for jaywalking? Sorry, THE RULES!

[ronnie624]

12. To be accurate,

anytime someone desires more than they need, it's correctly defined as greed.

But the hostility is absurd, considering Americans have been programmed from birth to worship capitalism.

[FBaggins]

36. You're missing that greed isn't just measured in dollars

Each passenger is confronted with the decision of what they want more... the money or the transport to their destination. For many it's a matter of convenience (i.e., it is "more than they need&quot . A doctor with patients to see can't get off the plane? Surely there was someone with less "need" to get to their destination so quickly... but they wanted that more than they wanted a specific dollar amount (or valued the doctor's patients).

At an $800 price point, they all wanted the transportation more than they wanted the money... but why wasn't that "greed" (at least for many)?

[ronnie624]

43. I was just making a general point.

I wouldn't want to dump on working people for getting the best deal they can. I would do the same under similar circumstances.

[WoonTars]

16. At this point they should have taken the offer of any passenger that wanted $10 million for the seat

...and it would STILL be a bargain considering the negative publicity they've received, to say nothing of the hit their stock took.

It's all a matter of perspective.

[The_Casual_Observer]

18. I doubt that anybody at that gate was authorized to do much more than they did.

Anyone making demands at the counter above and beyond would simply be getting in the way and causing a nuisance.

[Flaleftist]

19. This sounds like a unique situation

perhaps calling a supervisor with the authority to offer more would have been prudent. In this business it's hard to imagine they don't have the ability to immediately get into contact with someone higher up. Either way a policy change is needed on how they handle removing paying passengers who have already been seated.

[TexasBushwhacker]

21. 2.5 hours

The thing is, it's only a 4.5 hour drive. The pilot should have told the United crew who were the reason for all of this to call Uber or some other driving service. It would have only added 2 hours to their travel time.

[The_Casual_Observer]

24. It seems like a long flight for that distance! Nothing that happened in that situation was handled

very well.

[TexasBushwhacker]

26. It does seem long

But other airlines had similar flight times - 2 to 2.5 hours.

[Warpy]

31. The next United flight was 24 hours away

Continental even offered to fly me home on another carrier once, versus a puddlejumper over the Rockies to get me to a cross country flight. I stupidly took the latter. Never again.

If you're going to ask people to do a 24 hour layover and miss work the next day, you need to compensate them. $1800 is not out of the question, although it's on the high side and it would have been cheaper for United to put their guys on another carrier.

[The_Casual_Observer]

33. The requests for these "volunteers" seem to be made in the spirit of people who can go home and fly

the next day and take advantage of what they are offering in return, the idea that they are willing to compensate a lawyer or
engineer for a days missed work isn't in the equation.

[JI7]

37. they could have even said 1200

And i bet that same person would have taken it.

[FreepFryer]

22. $1350/per is the maximum allowable reimbursement

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights

[PoliticAverse]

39. No it's the maximum reimbursement you are _entitled_ to. There is no maximum allowable.

The airline is free to offer more, and some airlines do so on occasion.

[FreepFryer]

41. Oh cool - the maximum mandated. Good to know, thanks!

[Initech]

27. I got free travel on a couple of airlines doing that.

One I even got an overnight stay on the airline and all I had to do was pay for my expenses. That was pretty sweet.

[gopiscrap]

29. FUCK UNITED AND ALL BUSINESSES

the goal of business is to fuck you out of as much money for as little as possible cost. This is a nation of greed and United shouldn't be surprised that the greed they so fervently endorse bit them in the butt!!!

[trof]

38. My daughter got $5200 cash PLUS

Family of 4.
$1300 each.
Plus meal vouchers, hotel vouchers, REFUND of original ticket price.
They spent a week in the Caymans, at the Ritz Carleton, pretty mush for FREE.

[moondust]

42. But...but...think of the CEO's bonus!

Paying off passengers could cause the Emperor CEO to lose part of his multimillion-dollar bonus and then you'll never get anybody to take the job, right? First things first!