Sep 4th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
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September 4th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
It looks like the Republican convention has converted you, Matt — it’s made you take back everything you’ve ever said.
(I never grouse about your typos, but close your tags.)
September 4th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Quick fix!
September 4th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
your recent article in the washington post is clearly borrowed from obama’s talking points and attacks in a obama-conformist way a track record that is indisputably independent of the party line and ideological demagoguery, something of which you and obama, who has no track record to speak of, are clearly not capable.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Jesus was a community organizer.
Pontius Pilate was a governor.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
MW-
And you, clearly, are not capable of writing a sentence.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
The secret to avoiding this problem is simply to fly a lot more often.
If you’re an elite frequent flier the only delay you have to deal with is the delay caused by having to push past the “common folk” clogging the path to the jetway…
September 4th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Why do airlines overbook flights? Are there that many cancelations?
September 4th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
According to an article in yesterday’s NY Times, some NYC restaurants are now overbooking reservations in order to prevent suffering from no-shows.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Jesus Martinez was the best community organizer we ever had. I don’t remember this Governer Pilate guy. Did he quit government to set up a chain of exercise programs?
September 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Yes, there is a semi-reliable rate of cancellations or people who end up on an earlier or later (less full) flight.
If airlines didn’t overbook flights, they’d have to charge everyone more for their tickets, to make up for the inefficiency. Is that what you want?
If you don’t like it and don’t fly often enough not to worry about it, then take advantage of it. Book your flights for the busiest times (thursday evenings are particularly bad), then quickly volunteer to get bumped. My boss claims that when he was a grad student (5 years) he rarely paid for his airplane tickets because he did that so often.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Perhaps while waiting or whatever MattY would care to revisit this thread in which he linked to a highly misleading article:
yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/palin_and_special_needs_children.php
Thankfully, I’m not the only one calling him on it in the comments.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Let me make it even easier with a link to the post in question.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Have you seriously never been on a trip in which you had flexible travel plans and were able to make $300-500 in travel vouchers because of it? I fly a lot (probably 20 round trips per year), both for work and pleasure–never once have I seen anyone get bumped involuntarily. And auctioning off seats on the plane seems a pretty efficient solution to me.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
As my GF is studying to take her second actuarial exam, I can tell you that it in fact makes enormous financial sense for them to do this… as she related the math of the airplane overbooking to me personally… though, since actuaries are evil incarnate, I think your point still stands.
P.S. Don’t tell her I said that!
September 4th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
There will also be people who missed their connections.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
All them math folks, and the airlines still can’t figure out how to run themselves (as a basic business proposition, I mean. Not even going to touch quality.). It’s truly amazing.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I assume you are flying coach on a commercial airline –vice a chartered jet.
Your poverty-induced misery is God’s way of telling you that blogging is not a good line of work.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
At least, Sarah Palin told me God was the one responsible.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Would you prefer some regulation prohibiting this? If people really hated it so much somebody would offer more expensive flights and have a stronger guarentee that they wouldn’t be delayed. Matt you are a whiner.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Breaking news…….ALERT ALERT…..
Sarah Palin went to 5 colleges in 6 years……
Sarah Palin actually believes the world is flat, global warming is fake, and the Garden of Eden is how it all began…….
Breaking news…………ALERT ALERT……
September 4th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Well, Matt, you could try bicycling from Chicago to LA via Phoenix.
If you use something like the “Winnibiko”, you could even blog as you peddle:
http://microship.com/bike/
September 4th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Let’s not forget, overbooking of airline flights is pretty obviously quite good for the planet, because it maximizes the number of persons on each flight and thus reduces the per passenger carbon footprint. And given the huge CO2 output of jet travel, that’s no small advantage.
To answer the questions of the people who don’t understand this practice, airlines overbook because lots of people no-show on flights, and because at least major airlines have enough capacity in their hub and spoke system to get everyone to their destination even if they guess wrong on a particular flight. You could have an airline that doesn’t overbook, but that airline would have to charge higher fares to make up for the lost revenue.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I’m getting 2 stories here:
1. Airlines do this to save the money it would cost if someone no-shows
2. When they bump you, they throw a bunch of money at you, so don’t complain.
If someone with a ticket doesn’t show, just charge him anyway. And surely it’s cheaper to fly an empty seat than pay someone a bunch of money to fly later.
???
September 4th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
The problem is that overbooking has always happened to me on the middle leg (Chicago is a common place that I run into overbooking). If you take the voucher, they will not pay for your hotel if you have to get a flight on a different day. And you will be put as lowest of the low stand-by for the next flight. For some legs, that is death.
I once saw a woman and child trying to go from Chicago to Syracuse who spent almost 48 hours being bumped stand-by to stand-by.
Unless you live where the vouchers are being offered, you should never never never take the voucher.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
And surely it’s cheaper to fly an empty seat than pay someone a bunch of money to fly later.
No, because in my experience people give in for the weak sauce incentives. I have a fantasy of organizing a collective action where everybody holds out until the airline’s offers for compensation get ridiculously high. “I’ll try again tomorrow if you give me $3K to walk away.” I’m actually just curious to be in a situation where it gets that tense; would they continue escalating the offered compensation, or would they just count on airport security enforcing a lottery/decision-by-fiat?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
They won’t go any higher. They will just start to bump people. The scariest thing to hear is “The computer will not allow me to assign a seat for your connecting flight. You will have to get your seat at the gate.” That is airline for “If no one takes the vouchers then you are screwed”.
September 4th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
No, because in my experience people give in for the weak sauce incentives.
1. Even if they don’t, there’s a fixed compensation that the airline has to pay if nobody takes the vouchers and they have to start bumping people involuntarily.
2. The real reason why overbooking and paying compensation is cheaper is because they don’t have to bump very often anyway. Most of the time, they guess the number of no-shows pretty well.
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