Hacker News Reader

1. This was United, not Delta. The Delta mention in my comment was their response to an industry incident

2. No one ASKED for any money. United was trying to get people to voluntarily bump by offering X - no one accepted (because the next flight didn't leave for a day). United should have realized that if they really wanted to get their employees on the flight & not have an international incident, they could go a bit higher...

3. Here's the rule:

> If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the compensation doubles (400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum).

All of this is out the window anyways with the Dao case since it wasn't even an overbooked flight - one with too many ticketed passengers - but one where they were trying to get employees to another airport (which they could have easily booked on another airline due to internal agreements).

>1. This was United, not Delta. The Delta mention in my comment was their response to an industry incident

My mistake.

2. No one ASKED for any money. United was trying to get people to voluntarily bump by offering X - no one accepted (because the next flight didn't leave for a day). United should have realized that if they really wanted to get their employees on the flight & not have an international incident, they could go a bit higher...

Yes, but they don't have to offer any more. The truth is you don't get to choose if you are bumped from a flight they can simply bump you and the most you can sue for is the rate specified. Without a specified rate you can argue in court that "missing the flight cost me a multi-million dollar deal" or "I missed my grandfathers final moments" and potentially get awarded many thousands or millions of dollars. That risk likely would have resulted in a very different outcome. (probably the end of overbooked flights and increases in airline fares/stricter restrictions on missing flights to compensate)

>All of this is out the window anyways with the Dao case since it wasn't even an overbooked flight - one with too many ticketed passengers - but one where they were trying to get employees to another airport

That's something for his lawyers to look into of course, I have a feeling the 300K a year guys they keep on retainer who likely approved this policy have a good idea of how they can argue this was legal under current regulation. That or the legal department at United will have some openings soon.

"That's something for his lawyers to look into of course, I have a feeling the 300K a year guys they keep on retainer who likely approved this policy have a good idea of how they can argue this was legal under current regulation."

They can argue. But will the judge or jury agree?

Regarding the boarding, this was posted by a lawyer and makes it look a little bit like a clusterfuck. Could get quite pricey for United.

1. First of all, it’s airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about “OVERSELLING”, which is specifically defined as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to deny boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.

2. Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it’s clear that what they did was illegal– they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.

3. Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you’ve boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn’t have been targeted. He’s going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

> No one ASKED for any money

Unconfirmed reports say that some passengers did ask for more, but were "laughed at" by the United staff.

Source?

Reddit user who claimed to be on the flight. As I said, unconfirmed.

> Delta offered this maximum, and was declined by all passengers.

> Then Delta called government law enforcement offers

> Now due to the losses in stock price Delta has reevaluated it's risk/reward on terms of bumping passengers

You're confused. The recent controversy was caused by United calling law enforcement after the auction hit the cap, not Delta.

Delta is increasing the price they'll pay to bump to reap the PR benefits of appearing to be a better run airline.

1. Did you mean United and not Delta? 2. If what you said is true, then how is it that Delta is able to make their new maximum compensation $9,950, as stated in the second sentence of this article?

The regulation says that airlines must offer at least this amount before they start involuntarily removing people. Airlines are free to offer more, they just can't stop at a lower amount.

Right.. but far back up, the poster (not the one I replied to, which is just agreeing) stated that regulations got us into the mess by allowing a cap of ~$1300. But regulations don't stop the airlines from offering higher, and neither does the non-existence of regulations stop airlines from independently capping at ~$1300.

So back to the point, how is it correct that regulations got us into this mess of ~$1300 capping?

I guess it depends on what you consider to be the "natural" regulation-free state of things.

Without this regulation, would airlines be able to bump people involuntarily with no compensation at all? If so, then the regulation is a clear improvement.

Or would airlines be unable to bump people involuntarily without this regulation, being required to offer potentially unlimited compensation? If this was the case, then the regulation gets a huge share of the blame for this.

I'd think it would me more like the second one here, but I could be wrong.

If offering potentially unlimited compensation would increase profits for airlines, then they would do it regardless of regulation of minimums wouldn't they? I make that assumption because Delta seems to be testing that theory right now. So I still don't see how regulations are impeding anything; doesn't seem to be stopping Delta whatsoever.

It looks like this will result in a big loss to United, but this is an unusual case. Many people have been involuntarily bumped before. They lose out, but the airline wins. It's basically a form of theft. The purpose of regulation wouldn't be to force the airlines to make more money (since, as you point out, they'll try to do this on their own), but to protect their customers in a situation with a huge imbalance of power.

Don't you mean United instead of Delta throughout this post?