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Comment by kaycebasques | Hacker News Reader

I am relieved to see that regulators appear aware of the game that Frontier seems to be playing. I flew to Denver recently and didn't need to travel heavy so I went with their cheap fare. The flight from SFO was fine. The flight from DEN to SFO was extremely frustrating. We arrived at DEN early because we got a text message warning us about major TSA delays. Literally the moment we were about to board Frontier changed the flight status to canceled. The plane was there, we saw it arrive and I didn't get the impression there was mechanical issues. It was one of those situations where I intuited that it was useless to try to get my money back and I should just vow to never fly with them again and give everyone a heads up not to use them (like I am doing here).

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Why would you not get your money back from an airline-initiated cancellation? I get giving up on delay compensation - I'm currently fighting travel insurance on an 18 hour delay that incured a hotel stay - but "we canceled your flight, but we're keeping your money" seems like a scenario where the airline clearly has no leg to stand on.

Hell, do a credit card chargeback.

We had flights cancelled — they gave us a "voucher", not our money back.

The voucher apparently expires so we had to use it or lose it.

Also, the voucher was only good for the ticketed passengers it affected, so we could not use it for one of our daughters, for example.

Also, when we did try to use it we were told it was not valid for many of the seats/tickets we were trying to book. Where it was valid: upgraded (business class or first class) flights, flights with several layovers....

Such bullshit.

I think you just play the call to complain game there. They have to give you like for like; if you bought the flight with a voucher that expires, sure, refund it with a voucher that expires. But if you bought with cash, they should give you cash back.

In my experience (at 800k lifetime miles at this point), the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you're not happy with something, call to complain.

This. The voucher is always their first offer and they will claim it is all they can do. Keep pushing and they will refund your money in the same form of payment you used but they don't want you to know you have that right.

Yea but you have to commit to spending hours on hold with the expectation that they might not cave. I've gone back in forth with airlines before only to get nothing, it's not worth the time often. There should be some law that refunds (and many other business operations) should be automatic and can't be gatekept with several layers of phone systems, lies about only giving you a restricted voucher, and holds of more than X minutes.

I'd imagine this practice of only refunding people that spend hours and hours complaining to customer service is part of what they're getting fine for in the first place. If they're legally obligated to refund you, you shouldn't be getting the runaround like that just to get what is owed to you.

Frontier can be really cheap, I've gotten trips from New York to Miami for $39. It's just not worth 4 hours on the phone for a $39 refund.

Yep. American gave me a voucher that only I could use within 12 months.

If it was the cheap fare, likely around ~$100 for Spirit, then for a lot of folks it might not be worth fighting with customer service for the money.

Depends on how much you make. $100 in college would have put me into the red for a month.

My time, energy, and inner peace is more valuable than the loss I've incurred ($300) and the mental anguish of waiting for hours to get a customer support person to issue me a refund (someone who has probably been instructed to resist giving me back my money)

Vowing to never use their business again (so my loss is limited to a one-time event) and recommending everyone to do the same has worked out pretty well for me --- I can make peace with the experience and we slowly weed out these bad apples from the world

Chargeback works wonders.

They have already determined that they don't care if you fly with them or not, so why not make sure they don't get paid for experience? It is only fair.

This works surprisingly well. At least for Visa. I just initiate the chargeback and they sick their dogs on the vendor.

Wouldnt you get banned from the airline in the future?

wouldn't that not matter if you vow to never fly with them again?

Seems like that would have no impact since they've already vowed to never fly with that airline again anyways

If I have already decided I will never fly with them again it isn't a big deal.

Also, there are potentially plenty of costs that can't be recouped when a flight gets canceled. I have an 8 day vacation coming up with my lodging and rental car prepaid and non-refundable at this point. Delta has already changed my flight once in a way that would have cost me two days at my destination. I was able to reroute and actually ended up with a better schedule than my original flight but if they cancel or change it again, I might get my $800 back for the plane tickets but could lose thousands on everything else.

Large non-cancelable expenses are probably one area where travel insurance can make sense. When you can mostly unwind things in light of travel disruptions, illness, etc. mostly not. (Or, when you can, maybe make refundable reservations even if there's something of a premium.)

Travel insurance can be bizarrely difficult, though. My travel delay coverage covers "mechanical" issues but not "operational" ones. Plane broke? Covered (if you can get the airline to admit it). Pilot couldn't be found? Not covered. Why the difference? No one knows!

It would be nice to have more consumer advocacy and information in this area. I have had two travel insurance claims and they were both like butter, I easily recovered my extra costs. I stuck with that company, but now their COVID rider doesn't seem very good, so I went with another for an upcoming strip. Some offer "for any reason" upgrades... yeah, it's complicated and not a very friendly place to buy products or understand what they cover.

I rarely buy travel insurance but, last time I did, I bought from American Express which seemed more reputable than some of the ones that came up in search results.

They are the scum of the universe. If you don't pay for your seats, they will separate you and your party even if there are available seats together, because they know you'll shell out cash to fix it. (I think American does this now too, and possibly others but I haven't confirmed they also do it when there's available seats).

Isn't that their whole game? If you're going to fly them you should know it.

They have the cheapest fares, but they do that by upselling everything and any mistake will be expensive. If that's worth it to you (and sometimes the cost difference is big enough for it to be worth it imo) then it can be a reasonable tradeoff.

Flying an extreme lost cost airline that's entire existence is predicated on this model and expecting them to act contrary to that is confusing to me.

A large chunk of people think that every product should be certified as 100% effective and that just being able to read two numbers and see which one is the smaller number is the absolute maximum amount of work that should be required to be an informed customer of any product on the planet. Any defect in the product is "a scam," yet, anyone who pays anything more than the absolute minimum viable option is a total sucker. It's honestly a very strange way to view the world that I don't really understand. My source is that my mother is an ardent member of this group of peole. I find that it mostly just leads to the opportunity to complain about everything and build up a complex around you being "slighted" by the universe all the time.

I see your point, but also believe markets of all kinds function better where there is price transparency and it's easy to see what you get for what you're paying, as early in the process as possible.

Makes for a more efficient economy that benefits everyone, even the producers in the long run.

I don't think it should (or can) be that simple, but I also think some of these airlines intentionally hide that "standard" services aren't included, and sometimes even the pricing.

E.g. [1]. I had no idea the pricing of carry-ons for Frontier changed depending on when/where you add it. It also makes it hard to compare prices across airlines, because I have to remember which charge for luggage and how much, so I can add it to the cost when I use flight finders.

Sometimes the changes are also something I wouldn't think about. E.g. I flew Southwest recently and had no idea that "open seating" was even a thing to check for.

I can see how people who don't fly regularly get confused. I fly a couple times a year and get surprised, I can't imagine the bewilderment of someone who flies once every 5 or 10 years.

I'm actually fairly upset when airlines _don't_ do this. They're just leaving money on the table.

If you want to pick your seat, pay for it.

So you only get to sit with your loved ones if you have enough money? That's not a world I want to have any part in.

You only get to fly to see your loved ones if you have enough money too.

Ancillary revenue like seat assignment fees makes it so that more people can afford to see their loved ones.

This is only true if those seat assignment charges actually result in significantly lower ticket prices for everyone else, which is far from guaranteed.

It's not guaranteed, but competition solves this problem, and competition has empirically been particularly effective in the airline industry.

There is a very good reason people fly Spirit/Frontier/Allegiant/Sun Country.

No, you see, if they don't lower costs to the point of making no profit, then they will go out of business. Thats called competition and it's why no companies are able to buy shares back or pay dividends.

I'm not a fan of a lot of the fees that airlines impose--but then I also don't fly budget airlines or buy the cheapest tickets. Personally I'd probably be happier with a more premium flying experience and somewhat higher ticket prices--though not enough to routinely upgrade to business class. And I'm sure there are many people for whom air travel over Christmas to visit family is something of a luxury appreciate being able to spend less money.

>If you want to pick your seat, pay for it.

Ya its called a ticket, which are typically received in exchange for money. Should airlines also charge a disembarking fee? pay up or don't get off the plane? Seems like that's more money left on the table, captive audience and all.

You're still going to get to where you want to go and you'll still get a seat. That's the service you're paying for.

Disregarding the kidnapping part of your straw man: we also do already charge for priority disembark. This is why premium seating is typically near the boarding door.

> You're still going to get to where you want to go and you'll still get a seat. That's the service you're paying for.

The service I'm paying for includes an assigned seat, just like my ticket to the movies does. Its not justifiable for an airline - A federally regulated industry, not some mom and pop local business - to intentionally degrade the quality of their product to nickle and dime their customers.

Lets expand your premise a little: Should toll roads charge families extra tolls if they are in the same car together? There's revenue there - a family is certainly getting more use out of the "privledge" of traveling together than two strangers, or one person. Should NFL stadiums, movie theaters, concerts charge extra for booking seats that are adjacent? Revenue and 'Value' there as well. How about hotels? Trying to book 3 rooms for a company-conference visit, it'll be $100 for the first room, $250 for the second, and $500 for the 3rd.

> federally regulated industry

Regulations are primarily there for safety concerns, not you complaining about what is honestly a non-issue. If you don't want to pay for premium seats just don't pay for them??

But on that note, airline deregulation in the US has been the best thing that has ever happened to air travel. It is now far, far more accessible to travel by air. The revealed customer preference is that very few, if any, people want to go back to being forced to pay the old fares, even if the seats were bigger and the service was better.

> The service I'm paying for includes an assigned seat, just like my ticket to the movies does

Frontier is pretty upfront about this. You certainly have absolutely no guarantee of sitting next to somebody without paying for it one way or another. You get a seat. You don't get to choose your seat. Some theatres also do charge extra for choosing seats, and the ones that don't market themselves as premium theatres.

> some varying strawmen

I certainly don't think any of these techniques should be regulated. I can certainly see a surcharge if you require adjoining rooms in a hotel.

>Regulations are primarily there for safety concerns, not you complaining about what is honestly a non-issue. If you don't want to pay for premium seats just don't pay for them??

Regulations are also there to curtail monopolistic or "anti-competitive" behavior. What is nickel and diming people who don't have an alternative anything but abusing a monopolistic position? In a healthily competitive market[0] this could be adequately adjusted for.

> some varying strawmen

Politely refrain from cursory and trite dismissals - I have engaged with your points in good faith but you do not seem to be doing me the same courtesy. Why is it you consider these to be either unrealistic or patently unacceptable but airlines splitting up families is neither?

[0]E.g. movie theaters have majorly moved over the last decade or so to assigned seating, because this provides a better experience -- a competitive advantage and because trying to rent seek via price discrimination would see them lose customers.

The ticket in this case is for a flight, not a particular seat on that flight.

Think of it like buying lawn seating at a concert. Best spot is taken? Tough luck.

With a general admission concert ticket, your grouping still remains intact. I haven't flown in a while (thankfully), but the original comment makes it sound like they sell you an unassigned seat ticket, but then assign you a specific sometime down the road, perhaps maliciously.

The concert analogy is close but not perfect because the problem is that grouping necessarily puts you into premium seats.

If they can sell aisle and window seats at a premium, you can't allow people to group for free without putting people in relatively more premium seats for free.

The scale of airline seats (on a single flight) and concert tickets is incredibly different anyway, and different forms of price discrimination are required.

Southwest is an example of general admission applied to airline seating.

By the time you're calling non-middle seats "premium", we've already lost. We should aim to have markets that provide abundance rather than focusing on extraction through things like price discrimination.

It's indefensible that they sell seats which then aren't actually big enough to fit a person, whether it be their legs or their arms - this is essentially the entire setup of "middle seats".

If they wanted to charge linearly based on dimensions, I'd understand that. But the general pattern with price discrimination is that they charge outsized amounts for slightly more use, because they know they have you over a barrel. See also: dinosaur ISP data caps.

There's no airline seat that can't "fit a person", that's hyperbole. Fit any person, maybe. Fit without touching the person next to you, maybe. Fit without negotiating who uses the armrest or shared spaces with a stranger, maybe. I fly frequently, I'm 6'2", I'm obese. I fit into a middle seat. Don't love it, it's not the nicest, but it's less cramped than any public transit seat and most theater seats.

By your definition, it would be fine for them to sell the seat that was your lap to someone else, since your body still has enough volume to exist.

I've often flown in seats where I had to spread my legs (eg into the aisle) so my knees were not pressed up against the seat in front of me. And on most flights, my shoulders are over the armrests. Talking about "the" armrest nicely demonstrates how much we've been saturated by their nonsense.

As I said, I'd have no problem if airlines charged as a linear combination of your weight and the dimensions of your seat. But rather the setup is to gouge an outsized price for a comparatively small amount of additional room, because they'll catch people at the margins over a barrel.

The idea that everything that can be differentially priced should is really annoying and leads to BS like this where everyone's life is worse to marginally increase profits.

No, it doesn't, it's still a matter of luck. When you get to a general admission event, you might find that there's a seat in the middle two rows up, two seats together and then another seat three rows away. I've certainly experienced this; and I've experienced cases where I'm lucky and we can sit together. But it's very typical for parties to leave single seats between and for you to be stuck with scattered single seats.

General admission is usually either standing room or lawn seats. I can't think of a show I've been to that had GA tickets and capacity defined by the number of hard seats, for exactly that reason. I'd believe it could happen, just not commonly.

There are many reasons you might want to split up your group at a GA event, like say some people wanting to push up to the front. Or in your seat example, if your group values being closer rather than being together in further back seats. But that's your own choice and not a result of the venue forcing you.

"We will actively make your life worse unless you pay us a premium in exchange for not doing that" is a terrible way to run any part of a society. If that's just how businesses are expected to behave, then we need to find ways to change that as a society.

There are classes of service and product just about everywhere.

Basically everyone flying coach on a commercial aircraft has a deliberately worse experience than if they paid for business class. The alternative is to have a single level of coach service only (which is fairly common on regional jets) or a single level of business class only service (which is rare--BA LCY to JFK as far as I know although I'm not sure that even exists any longer).

In cases like business class, the airline provides specific products and labor for those who paid more, in order to make their experience better. In the "deliberately split up parties" case, the airline provides labor for those who paid less, so as to intentionally make their experience worse. That makes this an entirely different scenario.

100% agreed. On my last flight where a family sat together without paying, I was literally crying and shaking. 'This isn't how capitalism works!' I cried out, but the flight attendant wouldn't have any of it.

I don't know how you managed, but on my next flight with families who dodge valid charges, I will raise my plastic cup to you good sir.

I can get that first rows of the plane or places with extra leg space could be charged, but charge for selecting the last row of the plane? thats just greediness

Personally I’ve always seen them allow you to get up and relocate as soon as cabin doors closes. But yea, you didn’t pay for a seat assignment so you might get stuck where-ever. They’re pretty clear about this…

Flown Frontier many dozens of times, since I usually travel alone with just a backpack. It’s probably saved me $5-10k in my adult life. Very often it will be $150+ less than the next cheapest option.

Speaking of relocating, I don't love having to pay to pick one's seat, but IMO the larger problem are the customers who choose to don't pay and assume they can bully other passengers into moving. Yeah it sucks you have to pay for the privilege, but it's not the other passenger's responsibility to handle it for you.

> they will separate you and your party even if there are available seats together

Airline seats are also assigned based on weight distribution. It's not just malice and greed.

Right now American seats basic economy in the middle seats and main in isle or windows. The system will try and seat family’s together if they are on the same reservation and the kids are under 15.

So you’re best to pay for seats if you want to be together. However, if you pay for seats and they change your flight on you, those seats are ‘lost and you need to call for a refund.

I would be happier if they gave back that money to customers directly. If the airlines do not do it, let the govt. do it after they pay the fine.

However, what happens is that they put a fine and later they spend the money however they decide. It is funny. :)

Southwest also advertises many more flights than it plans to actually fly. Like if there's no penalty for a less than 2 hour adjustment, why not advertise flights every hour, and then regroup people day of? Or send them to Oakland instead of San Francisco, day of?

Probably flight crew resourcing issues. Incredibly common on all airlines lately unfortunately, this year I’ve had it happen on American (twice!) and United, but surprisingly not Frontier yet. United at least let me know before I went to the airport.

> major TSA delays.

This infuriates me. Last week I was stuck in line for TSA for an hour and a half at Sea-Tac. The TSA clowns had one guy looking at the X-rays of luggage at the speed of molasses. Am I to believe that the TSA, FAA and airlines can't coordinate to determine when gluts of incoming passengers are expected? Bullshit. Why didn't they have more TSA workers on shift? Because they don't give a shit, nothing in the structure of the system gives the TSA an incentive to give a shit and do their job well. What do they care if people miss their flights? They don't, those smug pieces of shit don't care at all.

They even have signs plastered all over their checkpoint threatening you with federal charges and huge fines if you "verbally abuse" the TSA workers. In this country it is legal for me to call a traffic cop a fascist pig, but I can't say the same to a TSA agent? I hate them so much.

I used to work in the same building as the TSA. They were some of the rudest people I have ever been around. They would smoke in the stairwells and literally anywhere other than the smoking areas.

They have the same problem as BMVs, they have literally no incentive to improve. There is no competition.

And now they are like other bad organizations (e.g., police departments that have a history of shooting unarmed people) in the respect that nobody wants to be associated with them, so they can only recruit from the bottom.

They also don't get paid when we have budget legislation. Who would want to work in a place like that?

Paying more for a job already designed to attract terrible people will still attract the same terrible people, it will just make them richer. Again, see police departments.

You can see a different sort of example in teaching: teachers put up with terrible pay for a long time, but now they're quitting in droves because of terrible work conditions and lack of emotional fulfillment.

You have to change the nature of the job from something designed around theater and blustering to something actually useful. The pay is never the problem, it's that the jobs are bullshit. Although once the jobs are no longer bullshit, we should probably pay them better.

> threatening you with federal charges and huge fines if you "verbally abuse" the TSA workers

It's probably unconstitutional, but no one has tested it in court yet as far as I'm aware.

I don't think anyone wants to be detained by the TSA and put on the no-fly list to call a TSA agent a fascist

I expect they would detain you, force you to miss your flight, but not actually fine you. Without actually charging you with anything despite the threats, they avoid having their bullshit rule challenged in court.

If I ever come into possession of fuck you money, I intend to set up an organization whose mission is to buy cheap plane tickets that people are not intended to fly on, and then pay and instruct people on how to screw with the TSA completely legally.

It would probably be more effective to fund a few senators and congress people on the condition that they amend the The Aviation and Transportation Security Act.

He said fuck you money, not Jeff Bezos money.

It strikes me as remarkable that, in a pandemic which killed several hundred airliners worth of Americans, a lot of fuss was made about mask-related impositions, while TSA-related impositions that save a number of lives that's close to zero have become entirely normal. All War On Terror and no War On Viruses.

People objected to the TSA, but the political climate in 2002 was too much in favor of it.

Sure, but that was then and this is now. I guess it's simply not possible to get it back into the "discourse" as a thing that should be changed.

It's a worldwide thing. EU airport security is even stricter and they're not going to let go now.

The airport security in Europe and South America is not even close to how it is in USA.

My sample size is two - one departing flight each from LHR and DUB - but they were way less painful experiences than any airport I've flown out of in the US.

The few times I was in the US I definitely did not have the feeling that EU is more strict.

Aside from the shoes and scanner thing (absent TSA-Pre) in the US, as someone who has traveled a lot in both Europe and the US, is seems pretty much a wash. I've had silly things like a bladeless corkscrew confiscated in Spain but I seem to have the same generally low rate of hand inspections etc. (usually related to having a bunch of cables/electronics jammed together in a bag) in both areas.

Yes so strict that we don't even do the shoe thing or the crotch grab thing here.

While I agree that the US is stricter, the EU has gotten strict as well. There are millimeter-wave scanners in many airports (usually mandatory with an opt-out pat-down, but in some airports you have a chance to just go through the metal detectors), sometimes they make you take your shoes off, X-raying takes ages. The US is stricter only in the sense that the TSA is everywhere all the time, whereas in Europe it's only some places some of the time. At least in Europe you don't have some highschool dropout rifle through your luggage and leave your suitcase open, though (that's happened to me in the US).

It used to be that you'd go through a metal detector and be done with it, and that's still the way it is in, for example, Greece. My local airport (second largest in the country, but still no SFO) gets you from the entrance to the gate in less than ten minutes.

I don't know why we've accepted this bullshit. It's not as if some malicious actor couldn't just hit a train or bus instead and kill just as many people, yet we accept all this hassle and invasion of privacy for exactly zero benefit.

> At least in Europe you don't have some highschool dropout rifle through your luggage and leave your suitcase open, though (that's happened to me in the US).

No but the people putting the suitcase - that you had to take apart yourself - through the scanner will steal things from you - my credit card and powerbank went missing during the process this summer.

What do you mean take apart? When taking your laptop out? I just close it again, that limits opportunistic theft by a lot (though you're the first person I hear having stuff stolen from).

Yeah, I took it out, closed the suitcase and send the boxes on their way. Then they forced me to open it up again and take out my camera, chargers and some cables etc too, I guess they took it during this.

We don't? So the officers groped me just for fun this summer? And my GF's bra had to be undone just for fun too?

> So the officers groped me just for fun this summer? And my GF's bra had to be undone just for fun too?

Probably yes. But for their fun, not yours.

They didn't look like they were having fun, tbh. If I had to grope 300+ people, some of them really not appealing, I wouldn't have fun too.

Then why do you think they do it? It's obviously not for security.

Because they were ordered to do it.

In most European countries this is done by private companies and they are really efficient. Rarely waiting time is more than 5-10 minutes in.

The problem is we have a culture that often overly accepts protectionist and defensive systems and is highly averse to any risk what-so-ever. When these sorts of systems are put in place, they become far more difficult to remove than erect, even if they're shown to be ineffective, wasteful, or actually add to risk.

You're not going to see many politicians vote against such systems because the second some incident occurs, their stance against protectionism will be crucified by opponents and gobbled up by the general public. This is one reason why the US defense budget continues to balloon. Anyone who pushes to reduce spending can easily be painted to the masses as someone who doesn't care about or want to secure your safety. This dynamic also plays into use of fear for power, so those in power drum up fears and explode risk in their own interest.

> protectionist and defensive systems and is highly averse to any risk what-so-ever

... like masks.

But seriously, a lot of the same people that objected to the TSA madness also objected to the mask mandates.

> But seriously, a lot of the same people that objected to the TSA madness also objected to the mask mandates.

But this time a lot of people who didn't object to the TSA objected to masks.

Taking off your shoes once (maybe twice) a year vs putting on a mask multiple times every day.

I’m not surprised more people actually objected to the latter.

That's the danger with putting measures like this in place as a reaction to a shocking event. Once done it's nearly impossible to undo (Patriot Act, NSA Surveillance Act, etc., are more good examples).

It reminds me of Norway's response to the Utoya massacre. IIRC in a speech at the time the gov said they weren't going to change their system because of one terrorist. (I might be remembering wrong but that's what stuck with me.) The US on the other hand took the opportunity to ram through as many "security" provisions through as possible which are with us to this day and can no longer be questioned as to whether they are indeed necessary or helpful.

Even if it was in the discourse, nobody wants to be blamed as the person who got rid of the TSA when the next shoe bomber or whatever pops up.

We must do something!

This is something, I will do it!

Fill in useless mask mandates or shoe removal as you see fit.

Everyone is against government security until a bunch of guys fly airplanes into buildings.

> while TSA-related impositions that save a number of lives that's close to zero

Are there any good estimates of the total economic costs of this security theatre?

I don't know about the cost but the benefit is close to zero, if not zero. I am positive that the net benefit (because cost is surely positive) is negative accounting even for the number of jobs it creates.

> The source did not give an exact number, but said the failure rate was close to 80 percent. Members of Congress called the results "disturbing" in a public hearing following a private, classified briefing to the House Committee on Homeland Security.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-11-0...

archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20221116171835/https://www.usnew... https://archive.ph/hzA1y

You can make one yourself: How many hijackings of US airlines where there in the 20 years before, and after. The number was higher before, but it was very small.

Locking the airplane cockpit door, along with awareness that hijackers will kill you (as opposed to fly you to a different country and you are free in a couple days if you stay quiet) are also factors. I don't know how to separate them from anything the TSA does, but I have to believe those are both more important.

> Locking the airplane cockpit door

A change which contributed to the complete loss of an aircraft and all aboard when the pilot left to go to the toilet and the copilot locked the door to crash it into a mountainside. The law of unintended consequences in full effect. Had such a change not been enacted that flight likely would have survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

I long ago concluded that TSA is mostly a jobs program, not a security program.

I’m not against government jobs programs. Just wish it was something useful day to day, like healthcare, versus security theater.

I'd rather just provide UBI. Pay them to do nothing instead of paying them to make everybody else's lives worse.

This is payment and structured days, which ensures that people have a good reference for applying to other jobs.

It's somewhat better than a UBI

It'd be better than UBI if they weren't making everybody's lives worse in the process.

Who is them?

A UBI is going to normalize condition and make “them” see there’s even more to participate in.

Sounds like you still prefer maintenance of a steerage class, assuming you’ll be a bit higher on the totem pole. But I mean, real talk is you’re still just one of billions. How you feel the world as-is is a meaningless measure for how you would fit into a UBI world. And I have no particular obligation to your sensibilities. shrug emoji You’re a “them” to me is not an unreasonable statement.

I think you're overthinking it and "them" here is the TSA employees. UBI by definition means everyone.

Also I have no idea what "normalize condition" means?

Oh I meant something like equality of condition.

"Them" is TSA employees, as the other user explained. The rest of this is a lot of pretty aggressive assumptions about me that are entirely unfounded.

Or at least something useless but harmless, like smashing rocks into gravel with hammers. That would be much better than harassing and hassling everybody trying to go on a vacation.

The problem fundamentally with the mask debate is that surgical masks barely make a difference in transmission. If we were serious about mask wearing to prevent respiratory viral transmission, we would be wearing well-fit N95s like 3M Auras, which are virtually impossible to fit improperly and are way more comfortable than surgical masks. They are also far more effective at preventing airborne/droplet viral transmission. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest mistakes the CDC (and other institutions) made, and it had dire consequences: millions of people died and a majority of Americans lost trust in this institution for its poor recommendations.

In the beginning everyone thought COVID is only droplet transmission and in that case regular masks work really well because it prevents someone carrying the virus from spreading dropdlets. It doesn't even have to be very tightly fitting because droplets will get attached to the fabric. Later there were some evidence that it can become aeresol in some high concentration situations like hospitals, but for all practical purposes in everyday life its droplet.

The problem is not that they are ineffective but that people followed them poorly. I've seen countless people wearing them super ineffectively like leaving their nose completely out, and many people when they wear surgical masks they don't bend the metal bar to fit to their nose and instead basically have like a canopy instead of a mask which of course doesn't do much.

> Later there were some evidence that it can become aeresol in some high concentration situations like hospitals, but for all practical purposes in everyday life its droplet.

That's not true. There are good studies, followed up with full contact tracing in the environment it happened in, that show aerosol transmission in everyday situations (such as planes and restaurants)

Additionally on the poor fitting masks, triple layer surgicals are more effective (not effective enough) when double masking (which that situation is surgical first, cloth second.. this is the same as using a mask brace to ensure a tight fit)

However, the findings from Aaron Collins found that yes, they are better with a mask fitter.. but they still fail to qualify at the same level as an N95, KN95, or KF94 level of protection. (Those are the levels of protection you require when dealing with airborne based contaminants) On top of that it made it more difficult to wear.

That was later yet. At least in the public mind - some leaders who should know better were saying things that they should have known were false.

Are you suggesting that less than N95 masks do not reduce COVID-19 transmission?

Yes. Surgicals are not meant for protection against airborne contaminants.

While that is true, surgicals do provide some protection. They cut your risk down significantly when worn correctly, though proper N95 (and other similar standards meant for airborne contaminants) will reduce risk a lot more.

I am surprised to see this type of reply in 2022. When I Google "do masks reduce COVID-19 transmission?", I get huge number of hits for peer reviewed published scientific papers. And most of the papers are focused on less-than-N95 masks. For the ones that I reviewed, the answer is overwhelming "yes", and a statistically significant reduction.

So we have a few issues with that query.

Do they reduce COVID 19 transmision is basically the same question as does a book stop a bullet. Yes. Is if sufficient? No. (Safe vs Safe-er)

With aerosols, it's a lot out there, they're light, move from low pressure to high, and they float. (You need better protection, and you have to ensure that the filter does it's job, surgical don't and can't do that.. although the CDC tried to hack their way through that with "fit adjustments")

With droplet, it requires those being projected, more affected by gravity, and it requires an entry point into entering you. (They're heavilier particles, and typically this is less likely to spread)

All of the masking in the US is regulated by OSHA for the work world. (And is only for the working world.. no N95s for children) That's why N95s are required in hospitals (with workers, and only for workers are N95s required to be fit tested) in this case. Unfortuantely with a lot of the papers you see .. they tend to minimize what other country's population standards. I think they (KF94s, FFP2s, KN95 [if you have a trust worthy regulation body] etc) would be a better fit for the general population.

Someone decided to make masks a partisan issue. TSA enjoys pretty much bi-partisan support from politicians.

> Am I to believe that the TSA, FAA and airlines can't coordinate to determine when gluts of incoming passengers are expected?

Same with the Customs and Immigration Services (the passport checkers) at SFO. I have seen lines going out to the walkway (leading into the big room). I can't even imagine traveling with a couple of little children; there's no restroom in that big hall.

By law, these people get full passenger manifests, arrival times, etc. before the flight even lands. They know, down to the passenger, everyone's status, nationality, etc.

AND STILL THEY ARE OFTEN SHORTHANDED!

This is the reception we give to visitors to the country. SMH...

Perhaps they're trying to hire, but either the labor market is tight or they're not able to offer enough to get people to take the job.

GP's desire to berate TSA agents, for example, suggests that job-satisfaction might not be real high.

My friend that worked TSA for a few years said it was the worst job he has ever had.

It's tough to live near SFO on a Customs and Border Protection salary. I'm not surprised they have trouble with staffing.

SFO's airport security is actually run by a private firm:

https://www.flysfo.com/about/airport-operations/safety-secur...

The parent comment by @1024core was about passport control, not security screening. All passport checks at SFO are performed by government employees.

Last year I made the mistake of flying up to visit family on Christmas Eve. The TSA line wrapped around the entire airport. Luckily I made it just barely in time. I was already delayed when a nasty accident shit down the interstate and added an extra hour to my airport trip.

That's what you get for not arriving at the airport six hours before your flight /s

Sad thing is that the system constantly says that unsarcastically.

Airlines, TSA, and airport messaging constantly remind me to be hours early and to anticipate long security lines.

Real question / Zero trolling: For your travel situaton, is it possible to not fly?

edit: misread your question

I will go out of my way to not fly, since I've found flying (more specifically, the logistics _around_ flying) to be a displeasurable experience, and driving is much easier and affordable.

I can drive, spending 20 hours on the road, and 2 nights in a hotel - each way. Hard to say if that is better or worse than flying. The above trip is taken with my family so flying is more expensive than gas+hotels. However last time I took the trip we missed our connection (weather) had to take grey hound there as they couldn't get everyone there. Driving is not fun, but at least we can be sure to arrive on time.

Airport security was much better when it was private security not government security. At least privately security had alignment with airport customer service. Airports just have to deal with TSA BS now.

I like to remind people, especially kids that don't know different, that the TSA was imposed on us and air travel used to be so much better.

Better in that it was more effective?

More cost effective and answered to the business serving travelers. TSA answers to nobody and customer service is not even a priority. Private security that harassed, berated, and abused patrons would not be working private security for very long.

You will have to define effective to tell if TSA or private security is better. TSA is an effective hinderance on travel, jobs program, and public money funnel for scanner companies. Private security was more effective at scaling security for the risk and trying to be a minimal hinderance to travelers.

It's actually one of the reasons I'm hesitant at being pro-public transit.

Last thing I need is a TSA equivalent pat down for entering a bus or metro because the government decided it wants to.

Have you ever travelled to and taken mass transit in Israel? This is common.

No, I don't live in or have visited Israel, but it's obvious why Israel would have such precautions compared to many other parts of the world.

Outside the USA, especially at smaller airports, xraying all the bags is something thats only done to meet the rules. The staff don't care what you have in your bag - if security has a queue, they'll just pick 100 random people and tell them to skip security and go straight through to departures.

Likewise, if there is only 2 people on duty to search bags identified that need searching, and they're busy, then any liquids etc. in other bags will be 'not noticed' so as to not overload the people searching bags and cause queues.

Such things make me always deliberately choose small airports - they're just so efficient compared to airports where security theater is done 'properly'.

Domestic flights in New Zealand are incredible. Single X-Ray machine, toss your bag on the conveyor, and it goes through just as fast as you can walk to the other side. No body scanners, no metal detectors.

The security 'theater' is what we pay for a high level of freedom in the US, especially in conservative states. You may reach the end of the queue faster, but what if there's a bad guy with a gun there? Where will the good guys be?

Presumably standing around outside, waiting for the SWAT team, and not letting anyone else enter the building. How the Uvalde PD didn't all get charged with aiding and abetting is beyond me.

xraying all the bags is something thats only done to meet the rules. The staff don't care what you have in your bag

I wish this was true.

In Spain recently something in my bag tripped the Xray alarm. I had to unpack my bag and take "something metal" out for inspection. It turned out it was an empty food packaging with a shiny foil bit on the side. Over all, it's not so big a deal, but they certainly cared about it.

Spain has had an actual terrorism problem in recent years, so they are likely to have better standards. Other EU countries don't really have that problem and so will have less strict standards. there are different standards for flying into Spain than other countries (or at least there were last time I flew to Spain, but that has been a long time)

Never seen anything like it anywhere. This might be a European thing?

There is little to no incentive for the TSA or FAA to provide better service to the public. you can't exactly go with a competitor, The best you can do is file a complaint or email your congressman. (source 15 years of federal work experience for multiple agencies)

Airports also have an incentive to keep the TSA lines as variable as possible.

If the line can sometimes take 5 minutes and sometimes take 2 hours, you need to arrive 2 hours early. And then if it actually takes just 5 minutes - that’s 1:55 left for buying food and shopping.

It's not TSA, but I was particularly dumbfounded at Heathrow Airport when security exited straight into an extended shopping corridor of champagne, jewelry, and caviar.

It's not quite the same situation as it used to be, but this stuff used to be ideally suited to the dual purpose of buying gifts to take home and burning all your remaining foreign currency.

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