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United Makes Plans to Drop 'Baggage Neutrality'
theodp writes "If you need a clue as to how creative ISP execs might get in the absence of network neutrality, look no further than United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton, who is wowing Wall Street with his willingness to examine new ways to wring money out of the carrier, including making economy passengers pay a fee unless they want their luggage to come last off the plane." Now I think when i was like gold ultimate handjob elite years ago my bags had tags that usually made them come out first, but this seems just kinda crappy. I mean, remember when you got a meal on airplanes? No wonder people hate to fly.
Flying sucks because of all the security theater annoyance. I used not to check bags for more than half my trips, but now I have to check a bag every time because I don't feel like going through the annoyance of having my toiletries inspected at the security line. Fuck that shit. I now drive wherever possible.
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This doesn't seem like a neutrality issue to me.
Isn't this closer to a customer just paying for a lower latency connection?
The problem is the moves airlines make don't make sense if they wish to stay in buisness. In a competitive enviroment, buisnesses should be seeking to reduce their costs and increase the value a customer recieves. Charging to get your baggage first lowers the value of the product because while people who pay might get added value, the customer who is still paying the same ticket price gets less value by having their luggage no longer randomly come out. If the airlines were interested in being more competitve the correct move would be to offer flyers a discount if they don't mind their luggage coming out last. Removing meals from planes is the same thing. Reducing costs is only effective if you change the way you act internally and the product the public gets doesn't suffer.
It is also a stupid idea. It takes more work to prioritize luggage and sort it according to a set of rules determined by the price of tickets than to put the luggage on randomly in a first come, first served basis. You don't usually have to wait that long anyway. The intelligent objective is to load and unload the plane in as little time as possible. Gate time is expensive.
If they do this, it'll just mean more and more people will try to push the limits of carry-on luggage, rather than pony up for another fee. And we all know how much fun it is to be stuck in the aisle, waiting to get off the plane, while some PHB wrestles a laptop bag and an extra-large "carry-on" from the overhead bin.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
... United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton, who is wowing Wall Street with his willingness to examine new ways to wring money out of the carrier [CC], including making economy passengers pay a fee unless they want their luggage to come last off the plane.Let's think this through for a bit. At first, only a couple of people pay the fee. No biggee, and not much impact. Then someone, whose baggage came off last, notices the "priority tag" or whatever they use to identify the "don't take me off the plane last" tag. So s/he now ponies up for the fee from now on. Repeat for a few iterations. Now, nearly everybody has paid the fee, and they all come off just as before.
EXCEPT when some poor customer has paid the fee, AND his stuff comes off AFTER someone who did NOT. Guaranteed Upset Passenger.
The real kicker: what happens when someone:
Yep, sure sounds like <sarcasm>great customer service</sarcasm> to me. With increasingly ubiquitous video cameras, all it takes is a couple of postings to YouTube, a few blog posts, and then the REAL FUN begins!
Way back when, flying was a rare novelty, so it was inherently fun.
Today pretty much everything about it is a hassle, so it's only worth flying when constrained by time, or when other driving just isn't practical. I've done long-haul Greyhound long ago, and to be honest that wasn't so hot, either. I've never traveled by train, just taken tourist-type train rides.
As an aside, the annoyance starts when you book a flight. My wife has checked it out, and for at least one airline, the magic interval is three-weeks-and-a-day. Booking closer than that, the rates are outrageous. That is, except for a flight with an empty seat that is so close in time that you can't even get to the airport. One thing we've realized is that it appears that they accept new bookings right up to flight time, even for full flights. For the prices they charge for a near-in booking, they can bump someone, give them a free flight at the longer-term booking rates, and still make more money on that seat.
Then there's TSA, and the overloaded ATC delays, and the overloaded airports, etc, etc, etc.
Flying is just a way to get from point A to point B when other means won't work out.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Really, there are two issues with this. First, it seems that more people are using carry on anyway. In my experience flying, more carry on reduces the already dreadful flying experience. I see this as a competitive disincentive.
Second, I wonder if the cost of implementing such a plan, which would require marking and sorting bags, would be less than the additional revenue. This is the same question I have for the ISP. Will the costs of all the additional equipment really justify the additional fees such equipment would impose on the end user. Wouldn't it be better, like the airliines, to impose a fixed limit on throughput, and allow users to pay for more?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Ever since the increase in "security" after 9/11, I have done everything I can to avoid flying unless it's absolutely necessary. I've gotten pretty good at getting through the security gauntlet without an orifice probe -- playing dumb and cheerful seems to be the ticket -- but even then, most planes make the city bus feel like a luxury limo by comparison and airports seem to have been designed by a retired platform game designer. Add to that the bizarre security rituals, like the TSAA guard in New Jersey who banged my shoes against the floor before declaring, "Nope, no bomb in there," and if I can skip traveling, I will, and if I can't skip it, I'll drive. About the only reason I'll board a plane voluntarily now is to vacation abroad, and even then, I have to ask myself if it's worth the extra-special unlubricated scrutiny you get when returning from abroad.
So now my bags are going to be delayed a few minutes? Who gives a shit? That's like being told that in addition to being worked over for an hour by mafia goons, someone will now call you a sissy at the end of your beating.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Proof: X is the base rate of a flight with unprioritized luggage delivery. The cost of having prioritized luggage delivery, per person, is Y.
Now you can either charge everyone X + Y and then offer a discount of Y to those who don't need it, or charge everyone X and offer a fee of Y to everyone who does need it. Either way, those who need it are paying X + Y and those who don't are paying X. However, offering it as an added fee gives the appearance of lower prices, which, if you're trying to stay competitive, is important. Removing meals from planes is the same thing. You can offer lower prices than your competition by not including meals in the base price. For those who don't want cold meat, or who don't eat that crap anyway, it's better incentive. It might make it marginally more expensive for those who do eat the meals (assuming it would cost less per person to have meals prepared for everyone than it would to prepare meals for only those who want it), but it would still be just as expensive if you were to offer the discount-method.
Or howabout more environmentally friendly and fuel efficient modes of transport, ie rail.
Monstar L
You don't get what you pay for, but you're required to pay anyway. As in:
1) You pay for homeowners' insurance only to find that your particular disaster isn't going to be covered. Just ask the people on the Gulf Coast.
2) You pay for a utility, like phone or cable, only to find that when you've got a problem or outage, you're without your service--not for hours, but for days or possibly even weeks. (Ever try to get a rebate from, say, your phone company when they take four days to send out a "technician" to spend twenty minutes fixing your trouble?)
3) You pay ever-increasing costs for your health insurance only to find that a catastrophic illness or accident leaves you in debt for years.
4) You pay for what is termed "unlimited" Internet services only to find that your ISP is cutting you back because they have a different idea of what constitutes "unlimited."
5) You earn your money, but you are required to pay the bank ever-increasing "fees" so that they can use it until you need it. In some cases, you even have to pay to speak with a human being (as opposed to an automated system) to receive an answer to your question.
We're all part of a vast pool of money to be tapped into at will, and the game is to return the bare minimum of value for what we're all willing (or able) to pay. Why should the airlines be any different? An interesting article appeared on CNN a couple of days ago. It seems the "working poor" are having increasing trouble making that paycheck stretch from one payday to the next--and the term "working poor" is now encroaching more and more into the "middle class." The Big Box Marts are starting to notice an impact to their bottom lines.
The airlines will find that fewer and fewer people can afford to fly, so they'll focus on ways to wring more out of the people who can still afford to fly. It's not surprising.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
This is not equivalent to net neutrality.
The analogous situation to no net neutrality would be to say the destination countries need to pay to guarantee good baggage delivery, so people don't associate them with lost baggage.
Charging the customer for better service is a perfectly acceptable way to handle getting more money, both the cable and phone companies do it.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
There's a perpetual argument on slashdot that goes like this:
Lin/Win: Macs are more expensive.
Mac: No they are not if you configure them Identically
Lin/Win: okay here's a Dell thats comparable and it costs $100 less
Mac: You are overlooking the value of a system that works. It's only cheaper if your time has no value.
Lin/Win: Well I get to choose with my PC, Mac forces me to pay the mac tax whether I want to or not.
So apparently there's a large number of people, larger than the max zealots, for which saving a dime at the expense of time and frustration is really a consideration. United is catering to that large segment. It's what they want.
What I don't like about this is that it is going to turn into what economists refer to as "driving the good apples out". This is when one is in a price comparison situation where one does does not have enough information ahead of time to discern on the basis of quality. It refers to why there are more bad tasting apples than good tasting ones in the super market, and it's classic application was to the Used Car industry.
So when you go to book a ticket on SABRE then you will see united has the cheap flight. It forces the other players to follow unless they can somehow differentiate their service levels. This is why luxury brands never offer a cheap version. They have to maintain a public image that when you buy the luxury brand that you never ever get a bad apple.
This happens in the cell phone market where players like qwest and verizon advertise the cost without all the fees they lard on it and others advertise the final price (e.g. any pay as you go plan). I'm looking a sunday newspaper and I see qwest is advertising that my internet connection can be just $26/mo (going rate in my rural market is $49). Then the fine print says "with Bundle". And when you add in the bundle you realized they just moved the cost over to another service (3 way calling a value at $10/mo!).
So there problem with parcelling and bundling services is it can distort the market for quality when the buyer has a hard time or lacks the time to find out if it's a bad apple before they buy.
The famed economic analysis's conclusion was not that good apples wind up costing more but that the distortion is so severe that good apples leave the market and are not available.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Or,
It is like offering customers a chance to save money by not even using checked luggage (which I pay for even though I don't use it).
How is tiers of service price gouging? And why can't I sacrifice decent service for cheaper prices? I do that for everything else.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
LOL. Great theory except for the mythical "discount of Y" and "lowering of prices once meals were eliminated". There was no lowering of prices, the meals were eliminated in an attempt to raise profits. Just like there won't be a discount of Y.
The *reality* is that you either receive less for your X, or you have to pay X+Y to get what you used to get.
The downside of this is that everyone will do what you do, which is cram as much stuff as possible into the overhead bins in order to keep from checking bags. This slows down the security lines and getting on and off the plane.
It does sound like a protection racket, tho. Maybe next will be:
"Would you like your bag to be handled extra-carefully? For a small fee we can make sure your bag doesn't get dropped or run over by a baggage cart, or maybe show up with the handles wrenched off. Heh-heh."
It's not about service, it's about something more valuable -- my time. I despise that first class passengers get to deboard before everyone else. They pay for bigger seats, better meals, whatever, but they should not get to buy my time away from me.
This is just another method for separating out the classes. Have money? We'll make your life more convenient at the inconvenience of everyone else. It's one thing to give people better service in exchange for value-add, it's another to create that value by taking from someone else.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
We need to educate the investor that making $1 this quarter by selling vital assets, screwing customers, and weaseling out of agreed to pensions is no match for the $10,000 you could make in 10 years by treating customers like customers, standing behind your employees and keeping equipment well-maintained.
Actually, it is pretty much a misnomer to call the modern breed of stockholders 'Investors'. They just want to buy it, run it up and sell it. They are not interested in 'investing' in the company at all.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
except it's not really a free economy because when the airlines royally screwed up and let their planes be hijacked, the feds didn't let them go out of business and executives go broke like should have happened. Instead the FAA makes all sorts of "regulations" that only make up for executive incompetence (wait for th FAA to make a "rule" about this soon) instead of allowing billion dollar companies to go under when they pull this stuff.
It's the same as the sweetheart deals they have with telcos to allow spying, or how they "punish" Microsoft, but are still their biggest customer.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
I'm pretty sick of people using 9-11 as an excuse for everything from having to bomb Iran to having to wiretap Americans without warrants to giving corporations special taxpayer-funded benefits (only after they make large contributions to candidates, though).
Let's see, what else is happening with 9-11 as the excuse? Um, how about creating an ex post facto law to give telcos immunity from prosecution for having broken the law (even though the illegal act took place 6 months before 9-11?
Bullshit. 3000 people die and a nation of 300 million goes belly up?
Bullshit. We are being played.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It never ceases to amaze me how the pernicious nature of a government bailout is completely lost on the average American. Businesses have revenue and they have expenses. Revenue minus expenses equals profit. If profit is negative, then your business model is flawed. No amount of corporate handouts can change this basic, simple fact. It doesn't matter if United is $10 or $10 billion in debt--either they are making money or they aren't. If their basic model is sound, then they should have no problem lining up private financing to bridge the gap. If they aren't, and they have to rely on the government for help, then this should raise a red flag, because the entire private banking industry took a look and said no. Who do you trust more to make sound, rational economic decisions--a bunch of self-interested, economically motivated lenders, or, omfg, the United States Congress? I almost can't even type that without laughing aloud.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Never knew how they allocated exit-row seats, but now Northwest charges for them, either in terms of a cash surcharge or in terms flyer points or one of those "Elite" or "Gold" memberships.
One thing about exit-row seats is that each of the big exits are "manned" by a flight attendant -- that is what they are there for and anything else they do like get you a pillow or not get you anything to eat in this day and age is incidental. The exit row seats are unique in that they are "manned" by whatever passenger is seated there -- in other words, your safety depends on the conscientiousness of a fellow passenger rather than on an airline employee who at least has had some kind of training.
Mind you, this exit row thing is a kind of loophole to the safety rules that allows airlines to place revenue seats next to some exits instead of rear-facing jump seat with a flight attendant sitting there. The gummint was OK with this until a few years back that they started to "have issues" with it and issued those rules that the airline had to ask if you, as a customer, thought you were physically fit enough to lift a 40 pound exit door, and the airlines began this lameoid thing of "asking" customers if they wanted to be moved from the exit row -- apparently there are all of these 90-lb 90-year-old grannies who can lift 40 pounds from an awkward angle because no one ever volunteers to leave such a seat.
AvWeek had a discussion about passengers and exit rows, and the time it was suggested to qualify certain frequent flyers by having them demonstrate that they could operate and lift the plug doors and giving those passengers preferrential exit row seating. The current system, at least on Northwest, is that the exit row is a perk that you can pay for, never mind if you are the kind of jerk who never pays any attention to the safety demonstration or has never looked at a seat card.
Part of the thing is that 1) airlines have a "don't scare the passengers" approach to airline safety, and 2) most passengers believe that they are French toast in any kind of accident and that the safety info is pointless, and many if not most passengers make a demonstration out of pointedly not paying any attention to the safety drills.
My own personal perspective is twofold. One is that I lived in Chicago when the 727 jet was new, and pilots transitioning from prop planes lacking the high power-off sink rate of the 727 with all of the droops and flaps down were crumping 727's with alarming regularity. The Chicago Tribune told of one accident in Chicago where after one of these crumped landings, only two people got out, people seated next to exits with the presence of mind to operate them, and the rest of the people died from smoke and not from any other injuries. Secondly, I hold a private pilot certificate and have been indoctrinated in the ways of procedures and checklists. Unlike many other conveyances, airline passengers play an active role in the safe conduct of their flights. Can't be bothered to pay attention to the safety announcements and look at the seat card because you have flown the fourth leg of a trip and have flown hundreds of times? Gee, I guess the pilots can't be bothered with checklists because they have flown thousands of times and must know all of the settings by rote not, don't they?
So you got fat slobs with frequent-flier privileges who could care less about paying attention to the fact that they are in an exit row and have a role to play in an emergency, and you have the rest of us steerage passengers on the Titanic told we are last in line at the life boats.
Any airline that won't let you take an earlier flight is just stupid. The later flight may be full and they might have to bump people, or there might be an equipment problem, or a 100 other issues that would mean lost revenue. A passenger flying on an earlier flight is not only a happy customer, it is also revenue earned.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!