Here is why I hate airlines!

[Doc]

Is there a WORSE business in american than the airline business? Seriously?

I'm a smart guy who plans ahead. Made my reservations for Atlanta and the SEC tournament months ago. Figured make my reservation and be done with it. Figure then I don't have to worry about the price fluctuations and all that crap, availability etc... but this prior to the announced change in the SEC finals game on Sunday. My flight out of ATL is 6:55. Its close but makable if coming directly from the arena and no luggage but close. So I figure I'll change to a later flight. Of course I knew it involve a fee. So I call to request my 2 tickets to be move back 90 minutes to a nonsold out flight and do so 4 weeks prior to the flight. Cost is $490 bucks. Am I the only one who has no idea why it should cost 490 buck to rebook on a later flight? It costs me less to use the first half of my original intinerary and then purchase 2 one way tickets rather than use the second half. Now this is on top of the nickle and dime approach where they charge for everything. Who travels without luggage? So now you have folks with "carry ons" that are the size of a trunk so that if you are loading late you have to check your bags (at no additional charge because if you check you bag at ticketing its handled differently?).

So tell me, what other business goes out of their way to screw patrons after they purchase something like the airlines do?

I'm keeping my 6:55 flight. might miss the last couple minutes of the game

[Darrell KSR]

That's harsh, Doc.

[Doc]

Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why this works this way. It is so uncustomer friendly. A one way ticket from atl to west palm is $200. I/checked not 2 minutes age, yet to change an already existing ticket it is $245 ADDITIONAL. As a business person it confuses the hell out of me. I want repeat customers. I want people to be happy with my service and I want to accommodate them. Now I can see if doing it 2 day before, well actually I can't if the flight isn't booked full, but with airlines it to the point that they make it impossible

[CitizenBBN]

It's always humored me that there are laws in many states as well as some federal statutes about price discrimination and price fixing, yet the airlines are practically built on the practice. Same exact plane, same exact flight and service, a huge array of prices based on when you booked and other factors all designed as price discrimination to capture consumer surplus.

The airlines have in part done it to themselves, but it's also a function of air travel being a commodity purchase for most people. They will buy almost purely on price, so airlines have done away with service and any concern for brand loyalty.

Personally I'd like to see the airports privatized, no more Congressmen meddling in who gets gate rights, and see if we can't get the free market and some competition back in the game. That almost always leads to some differentiation and improved service.

[Darrell KSR]

There ought to be an exchange service available--possibly controlled by a centralized airline unit, if nothing else. You can buy your one-way ticket back for $200, sell the ones you have for $200, give the centralized unit 10% of the sales price, and you're out $40 for changing the two tickets.

Reasonable, IMO.

[CitizenBBN]

Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why this works this way. It is so uncustomer friendly. A one way ticket from atl to west palm is $200. I/checked not 2 minutes age, yet to change an already existing ticket it is $245 ADDITIONAL. As a business person it confuses the hell out of me. I want repeat customers. I want people to be happy with my service and I want to accommodate them. Now I can see if doing it 2 day before, well actually I can't if the flight isn't booked full, but with airlines it to the point that they make it impossible

Pure price discrimination. Business travelers are more willing to pay higher prices, and business customers account for most all flight changes like that, so they price those changes really high b/c business travelers will pay it versus just live with an existing flight that conflicts. If the meeting got moved you have little choice but to change the flight.

It's absolutely crap IMO. They do offset that for their best customers, serious business frequent flyers, with different policies if you're a Delta Silver/Gold/Platinum member etc., but they try to stick it to casual business travelers whenever possible.

It's a bad policy and their contribution to air travel having become a commodity purchase. If none of them treat you any better than the others then people will go back and even use airlines who screwed them in the past, and the data seem to suggest they do just that, picking each time on the cheapest price quote.

Due to the limited number of airports the airline business is effectively a utility company model, with high barriers to entry including massive government regulation and physical access limitations (gate rights as opposed to wire and pipes for utilities) that keep a proper free market from functioning. I'd like to start privatizing the airports, which are the restricted physical asset, allowing more of them and thus more airline entry and more real competition as opposed to the government monitored oligopoly we have now.

[CitizenBBN]

There ought to be an exchange service available--possibly controlled by a centralized airline unit, if nothing else. You can buy your one-way ticket back for $200, sell the ones you have for $200, give the centralized unit 10% of the sales price, and you're out $40 for changing the two tickets.

Reasonable, IMO.

Very reasonable, and exactly what they don't want. Free exchange of tickets on the aftermarket destroys price discrimination.

That's why the airlines LOVE the DHS move to lock in tickets to a specific person. There are ways to provide security without doing that, but the airlines lobbied to have it implemented this way b/c it makes any kind of efficient aftermarket in seating/tickets impossible.

Sell off the airports to private companies who want to maximize air travel through their airports, lower the barriers to entry and exchange and a lot of this changes. The problem with Reagan's deregulation was that it only deregulated the price setting by the airlines, the government still basically runs the whole system.

Heck, Reagan National in DC is controlled almost directly by Congress. You want a gate there for a flight route? You have to get a powerful Congressman or Senator to get the route? Want a flight route out of LaGuardia? Better be tight with the Governor of New York.

Just like how the ICC became a captured bureaucracy of the railroads, the FAA is so tightly woven with the airlines and the lobbying they do that we don't have the true competition needed to punish companies for these kinds of policies.

[Doc]

Honest to god, when my uncle died... I had gone up to visit him one last time (he had terminal cancer) and I arrived prior to his passing. He died that night. When I booked my flight, I had a return flight on Monday morning but his funeral was monday afternoon (of course when I booked the flight there was no funeral planned as he was still alive). I called DELTA to see how they could help and basically it was buy a new ticket at the berevement rate so I ended up throwing away the second half of the ticket and buying a one way as that one way berevement was slightly less than adjusting my ticket. The flight the next day was maybe 25% full. It would have been nothing to simply change the date on the ticket, and this was so I could attend a funeral. I justified it as a "last minute" change. The above is a freaking month ahead

[CitizenBBN]

You'll get no argument from me it is a joke, and insulting, and illegal if you are a small business in most states.

[blueboss]

I once had a MD change a flight on Delta for me and a friend for no additional charge. If you call the day before the flight and tell them you are a DR. which you are and some medical ruse as to why you need to back your flight up it might fly (pun intended). It could be though that you've already let the cat out of the bag (did it again) and since you've already tried to change it you could have some kind of triple secret airline red flag next to your name as an unruly passenger.