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Comment by howinteresting | Hacker News Reader

I think the way to do it is how the EU does it, where slack is built in by law (large amounts of compensation for delayed flights). You pay more for each flight in return for predictability, and the race to the bottom is prevented.

Though I'm not sure it would have helped in this case.

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But, if customers really valued this predictability, wouldn't a US airline offer it and take all the business?

It's not important enough to consumers, which is why the EU has to regulate it. And I'd be very interested to see how much more predictable they really are for the extra cost...

Yeah, customers are often bad at valuing tail risks and predictability, which is why regulation exists.

And Aer Lingus had a meltdown just last September because of network issues.

https://simpleflying.com/aer-lingus-data-center-meltdown-com...

While that is definitely unfortunate, it looks like the system is working correctly. Aer Lingus is on the hook for millions of euros thanks to EU law, and then it goes after the IT provider to be made whole.

I guess let's wait to see how it works out in the US? The US government seems to be saying they're going to try to do something about this, so it doesn't seem like SWA is going to pay nothing here.

Actually, it appears that Southwest is already saying they'll reimburse tickets for canceled flights and potentially pay out for necessary hotels and alternate arrangements: https://www.southwest.com/html/air/travel-disruption

EU compensation for cancelled flights is all of that plus a monetary sum: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...

edit: though there is an extraordinary circumstances exception below. I'm not sure if this would qualify as that given that it's a combination of an adverse weather event and a technical system collapse.

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