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Airlines Face Crack Down on Use of 'Exploitative' Algorithm That Splits Up Families on Flights (independent.co.uk)
Algorithms used by airlines to split up those travelling together unless they pay more to sit next to each other have been called "exploitative" by a government minister. From a report: Speaking to a parliamentary communications committee, Digital Minister Margot James described the software as "a very cynical, exploitative means... to hoodwink the general public." She added: "Some airlines have set an algorithm to identify passengers of the same surname travelling together. They've had the temerity to split the passengers up, and when the family want to travel together they are charged more." It's an issue that will be looked at by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, launched by the government this week to identify and address areas where clearer guidelines and regulation are needed in how data is used. Passengers first started noticing they were being split up from their party if they didn't pay more for allocated seating in June 2017, with Ryanair most commonly associated with the practice.
Make airline boarding more like the old Southwest system or like a commuter train. Board handicapped people first. Other than that, those who show up earlier get to board first and pick seats first.
I admit i don't fly much, maybe 2 times a year, but I have always picked my seats at purchase time. isn't that the answer? Don't all airlines (except maybe Southwest which I have never flown) let you pick your seats when you place the initial reservation...
with Ryanair most commonly associated with the practice
Ryanair acting like shit heads? Color me surprised! /sarcasm
Seriously. This is just about the most abusive use of public information that I can imagine.
"Cracking Down" doesn't even approach what needs to be done - the airlines identified should be forced to list all family groups who have travelled together since, I dunno, 1947 and pay back (with interest) all the exploited families.
Anybody not complying should be subjected to something equal to or or worse than public hanging.
Identification of airlines and, perhaps, public shaming just isn't appropriate here.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
[put on cynical greed hat]
Treat everyone the same regardless of last name, but don't assign people who buy tickets at the same time to adjacent seats unless either they pay extra or not doing so would give one of them a much-higher-revenue seat.
This way families would be treated the same as co-workers or others who might want to sit together, and there would be no "family discrimination."
[take off cynical greed hat]
This is proof that the argument that corporations are amoral is wrong. This is an example of doing something that you know is wrong, just because you can.
This is Ryanair: the airline that charges to print boarding passes.
Everything Ryanair does is intended to maximize revenue, since the base price of the tickets is so low.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Lets take it further. You must buy tickets 1 at a time, no matter how many in your order.
Airlines want to make make more money, they find ways to get more money from people. If you are flying with small children who don't want to seat separately, don't fly "budget" airlines. Or pay extra which is still cheaper than traditional fares. What's the problem?
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
Corporations don't have to be moral. Too bad for everyone.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
"who have travelled together since, I dunno, 1947 and pay back (with interest) all the exploited families."
Yeah, lets just bankrupt all the airlines to pay people interest for stuff they've long forgotten about.
So they did a statistical analysis and found that some airlines separated passengers more often than others but NOT 100% of the time (or anywhere close) on one airline.
It sounds to me they've just done a statistical analysis on random number generator algorithms. I could easily see one programmer just doing a full on random seat pick while another does a best fit match algorithm then on to full on random seat generation if all tickets can't be allocated as a block.
Possibly you're also uncovering situations like RyanAir's passengers pick their seats more often leaving all the middle seats available or that they use smaller planes with 2 seats on either side where it's statistically unlikely a family can all be seated in the same row.
Look, if RyanAir and others can be investigated and provably shown that they intentionally split up families throw the book at 'em or regulate the seat fill algorithm to be uniform. But it seems to me if these investigators want to prove how useful they are they could look at more common "predatory" practices like bag check pricing and FORCING bag check (with the associated fees).
Or "resort fees" at hotels.
At work.
If consumers have alternatives they can decide to go with a competitor if they don't like a particular policy, and the problem fixes itself. Setting policies which encourage or at least don't hinder competition is much more likely to be effective than setting policies to try to control things, as the supposed bad actors will always find ways around the latter.
Surely they mean "AI", not "algorithm". The software can compare surnames and use that to split up families. If THAT isn't AI, I don't know what is.
Here's the thing. Products and services are not sold for what it costs to produce them, they are sold to hit the highest point on the supply/demand curve. Do you think that iPhone Shiny XX MegaCovet costs anywhere NEAR its street price to produce? It does not. It is sold for that price because people will pay that price to get it. "Fair" is not a concept that applies. Supply and demand applies.
Same with seating. If there is a market demand for seating certain people together, why should airlines not capitalize on that? There is a choice: either sit in the assigned seating for a cheaper fair, or if it's worthwhile to you, pay more to pick your own seating.
Especially as flights get full, it isn't possible for the airline to offer everyone their top seat choice.
and tell familys that you can pay $50 a seat or if your kids get split they will change you the $150 unaccompanied minor fee.
That's right, hanging's too good for them. They should be forced to attend a Barbara Streisand concert and watch Lena Dunham TV shows every waking hour for a month. Then write an dissertation on the profound family dynamics of the Kardashians and their effect on society. If it doesn't pass muster, send them to China to learn social responsibility.
Airline tries to make extra buck off passengers. zOMG the world is ending!
So what you are saying is that the airlines arent losing enough money? There will be plenty of posts ignoring the fact that airlines lose money.
Except airlines aren't losing money. See: Airlines had second-most profitable year ever in 2017
2017 Net Profit: 15.5 billion
IATA - Another Strong Year for Airline Profits in 2017
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It's a relatively new thing with budget airlines, and Ryanair is named specifically.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Airlines losing money" is not because of families merely wanting to sit together.
Also I am confused by your claim: https://thepointsguy.com/2017/12/airline-profits-record-38-billion-2018/
I know it's an archaic idea, but it'd be refreshing to see non-partisan action from the government actually dealing with predatory business practices.
Then again, the US gov't in 2018 can't seem to even stop robocalls (something everyone generally agrees is astonishingly annoying), so they're fucking useless.
-Styopa
All participaints in capitalism are greedy exploiters. The fact that they're fighting each other is what keeps the system in balance. When it goes out of balance, as in this case, government nudges it towards the center.
Which of course motivates the participants to try bribing or infiltrating government, which is a task that the richer do better, which is another way the system can get out of whack, but not relevant in this particular case.
I remember a flight in which the airline split us up, three different seats in three different rows. I didn't care that much: as soon as we entered the plane, the man sitting next to our almost-crying 4-yro girl offered to change the seat.
I would never want to fly next to a lone child, nobody does. This problem solves by itself, at least with respect to children.
Its all fun and games the decade after you've discharged all your debt with bankruptcies. Wont be so fun when they have to buy new planes again.
This isnt real profit in the same way that uber drivers arent making real profits.
"His name was James Damore."
If you don't want to be treated like shit, don't travel on a shit airline.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Airlines would not exist if they were losing money.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I bought airline tickets for my family on December 2016 for a flight on February 2017. They (Aeromexico) don't even assign the seats at purchase time and I can't risk being split up (who'd want to sit next to a lone toddler all flight; and I don't trust the airlines to do the right thing and reassign seats on the spot for free). So we ended up paying 30% extra over the entire flight's cost to have guaranteed seating together. So they may have started purposefully splitting in June 2017, but a practice of "hey that's a real nice family you got there, would be a shame if they got split up" has existed since long before.
Name and shame the airlines doing this so that I, and other people who prefer not to support psychopathic greedmonster ratfuckery, can avoid giving them my money by accident. Next, the airlines practicing this nonsense will naturally suffer increased incidence of air rage. Hopefully these forces can work together to pressure airlines to stop this nonsense.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The "problem" is probably that we now get to pick out seat when we book our flights. Nobody wants the middle seat in a 3-seat row. So the window and aisle seats get taken first. Then if a family books late, there are only middle seats left, forcing them to split up. The higher-fare seats usually sell last, requiring the family to pay for an upgrade if they want to sit together.
In the old days, you didn't get assigned a seat until you were at the gate and checked in (in fact that was the purpose of the gate agent). So there were no perks for buying your ticket early, and the airline could do everything it could to keep families together. I do specifically remember as a kid our family occasionally being split up when we got to the gate late (even back then they wouldn't assign you a middle seat if there were window or aisle seats available, unless you were traveling with someone).. Course Ryanair is European so I've never flown them, and they may do things differently.
Besides making them more money?
I would imagine this creates a ton of extra work for the airlines when people who want to switch seats to stay together flood the departure gate attendants. Worse yet are the people who don't notice until they board, and then panic when they are split up.
About 25% of my flights, I get asked if I would switch seats with someone so a family can be together. My policy is never to switch seats unless offered a superior seat, so there's a whole bunch of inefficiency for flight attendants trying to seat families together after/during boarding.
It also can't be a good customer service experience if families remain split up due to lack of options to move people -- the people sitting next to kids might not like it, the people split up don't like it, it drags down employee morale, it's just awful in all kinds of ways.
Boarder [sic] pun intended.
Cattle car transportation hits an all new low. And here I thought the lawn furniture chairs that are narrower than a lot of people's shoulders were the height of airline greed. Or maybe it was turning all the airline attendants into peddlers for a captive audience.
He abused hyperbole too much but he does start to head towards a legitimate point which is that people, Americans in particular, have gotten too used to the notion of super cheap air travel. Obviously airlines aren't going to cut into their profit margins, so they cut service.
I actually saw an article recently talking about flying in the good old days where they outlined what we'd now call even above and beyond first class and were quick to say "but that ticket to Europe was the equivalent of $1000 in today's money"
If I could get even today's first class level service for only $1000 for transatlantic flights, omg, I'd most certainly pay it. I'd pay that much even for a first class size seat/leg room without the extras. Flying to Europe _should_ be expensive. If you can't afford to pay $1000 for the plane ticket, you shouldn't be going at all. Stop buying into the cult of any fool should be able to fly anywhere he wants for a pittance.
The solution is quite simple, people need to stop taking unnecessary trips until airlines improve. Let the travel industry know that you've woken from the myth that "going away on vacation" is some kind of life essential.
Sorry to go off on tangents but it's like the people that bought Hummers when gas was $2 per gallon and then went on the news wringing their hands about the injustice of it all when gas hit $4 per gallon. If you can't afford to pay $4 for gas, then you shouldn't have bought a ultra premium gas guzzler in the first place even if gas was cheaper at the time you bought it.
Of course this would be Ryanair, the subway of air travel. I can't wait until they actually book standing room only and have people pushing in backwards so the doors can close.
No. It means you don't need one.
There should be a way to fly without giving any personal information to the airline. Obviously the government wants to maintain their security theater, but that could be a separate process where you only deal with TSA or other intermediaries.
Or is it auto selecting seats based on balancing wight throughout the aircraft? Honest question.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Fixing intentional family split-ups should be part of a bill that gets rid of a number of abusive airline policies that passengers can do nothing about:
1. Fees shall be for features of a flight that are optional, such as meals or a second checked bag, rather than for items that you need on every flight. There shall be no extortionate fees for fixing a name typo or making a schedule change months ahead of time.
2. There shall be a minimum seat width and pitch, as determined by flight safety professionals;
3. All tickets which are non-refundable shall be transferable, with the cost limited to the above non-extortionate name change fee. A seat sold is a seat for which revenue has already been collected. Airlines will discover that no longer having to deal with special exceptions and notes from doctors is well worth the lost revenue from selling the same seat twice.
4. The auction buyback system for oversells shall not be capped or limited in any way. If you really want a seat for that deadheading crew member at the last minute, you have to find a pax willing to give up his seat at the market price.
5. For any ejection or denied-boarding of a passenger not coming under the oversell rule, the carrier must file a report with the FAA detailing the situation and attaching signed statements by all crew and passengers involved. No more ejecting a passenger because "somebody felt uneasy about this person."
6. Passengers shall have unlimited right to film or record confrontations that occur during a flight, with the stipulation that a copy be submitted as evidence with any report the airline has to file in (5).
7. Carriers shall be required to use real math, rather than 'airline math' in calculating rebates for downgrades from higher classes of service that a passenger paid for but which cannot be provided at flight time.
The effect of such a set of minimum service standards will be to push revenue from extra fees, etc. into the base fare. Good, because this is the one number on which airlines compete. The reason for policies like charging people $5000 for fixing a name typo is to pull standard features of a flight out of the base fare, making it look artificially low. If a decently hu,mane level of service adds 20% or so to the base, then we will still be better off. Less air rage and fewer instances of "I'll never fly with you again!"
Sounds good - for a start...
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
So if I marry, and my kids have my name, the flight is more expensive than if,
I spawn kids on a woman, she keeps her name and the kids have random hyphenated names.
Or perhaps adopt kids, who keep their names?
So the LBWTF couple with adopted kids, gets a discount compared to the old fashioned married family.
You wonder why the West is not reproducing.
Not necessarily true. There are plenty of companies, even entire industries, that exist while losing money - generally subsidized because they are either of national importance (ie, steel in the UK) or because they have indirect benefits to the local economy (Tourism is often given substantial subsidies, because tourists also spend heavily at local businesses filling up on exotic food and holiday tat). Airlines, though, are just doing quite well on their own.
Airlines would not exist if they were losing money.
Airlines would not exist if governments didnt keep bailing them out. But they do. Repeatedly. Again and again. Each airline gets a bailout every few decades, and heavy subsidies every single year.
Hence, what you claim isnt true. The airlines can go on and on forever without showing any real profits.
The entire industry has been in the red for its entire history as an industry, From day one all the way to today.
The big question is how come you were so eager to join the conversation, imparting your wisdom, when you dont know such well known, important, indisputable facts on the topic? A year doesnt go by without another airline bailout by one government or another, and its always well publicized. Front page publicized. Nightly news publicized. 60 minutes publicized. Everywhere publicized. Apparently no amount of press can inform you.
"His name was James Damore."
And yet American Airlines ROA is ~3% and ROI is ~5%.
https://csimarket.com/stocks/AAL-Return-on-Investment-ROI.html
This definitely counts as "losing money." Cost of Capital includes Opportunity Cost, and they could have been making more money in a lot of other investments.
Is it just American that's doing poorly? Nope.
United 7% ROI
https://csimarket.com/stocks/UAL-Return-on-Investment-ROI.html
And some background
https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/031714/why-airlines-arent-profitable-dal-ual-aal-luv-jblu.aspx
https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0510/4-reasons-why-airlines-are-always-struggling.aspx
So why do you think making $15.5 billion on $258 billion (WAG based on assumption of 6% ROI) is making lots of money? Obviously, because these articles told you to think so, combined with confirmation bias. That one's easy.
So, the real question is: why do these articles want you to think making $15.5 billion on $258 billion is making lots of money? You note how they don't include the context of what the profitability ratio is? (Remember I had to guess.) Why are they using their Jedi Mind Tricks on you?
But even more importantly, why are you letting them?
I remember getting split from my kids nearly 20 years ago, after they reached age 6. Worked out ok but I can imagine not everyone is ready for that.
Any airline that is doing this should be called out. It is one thing to charge much higher prices based on how soon you get a ticket, 1-way vs 2-way, etc. BUT, to actively split families and then make them pay to be together, are airlines and CEOs that I hope dies off soon.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hey dumbfuck, you just stated that they aren't losing money because they get subsidies and bail outs. You truly are a fucking idiot.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
...So, the real question is: why do these articles want you to think making $15.5 billion on $258 billion is making lots of money?
I did not at any time use the word "lots."
The post I was responding to stated that they were losing money. They are not. I stated that they are not, and gave citations.
If you want to know, are they making "lots" of money-- that's a different question. If you want to know, are they gaining or losing value, that's also a different question. Ask a different question, get a different answer.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I spent about 40 hours in the air in the last week and actually got surprisingly good gateside service on most legs flying AA.
Flying super economy, I was limited to personal+carryon in the last boarding group, so my bags were effectively forced to be gate checked free of charge (rather amusingly, the agent basically hemmed and hawed for a while without ever giving any kind of affirmation when I asked if gate checking was necessary)... my hardcase was cracked on the first leg, but they did a quick replacement swap at my final destination, giving me a name brand 200$ bag for a generic that cost me 30$.
On the return flight, I was flying with my sister, and we were slotted in seats across the plane; she asked if there was any way she could be seated with her brother... they hesitated and asked if I was over 18. (Spoiler: My kids are over 18.) Then they switched us out for exit row seats at no additional charge.
You must hate profit! WHY do you hate on profits??
Exploit the weak. Crush them babies. That's US!
Captcha: preempt
That's right, hanging's too good for them. They should be forced to attend a Barbara Streisand concert and watch Lena Dunham TV shows every waking hour for a month. Then write an dissertation on the profound family dynamics of the Kardashians and their effect on society. If it doesn't pass muster, send them to China to learn social responsibility.
He's nothing but a low-down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous perverted worm! Hanging's too good for him. Burning's too good for him! He should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive! Hanover Fiste
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I have a relatively common last name. Are they worried I might sit to someone I don't know?
Nothing breeds intense dislike quite like enduring hours of sleep-deprivation in cramped quarters, so after one particularly memorable 20+ hour, multi-flight long-haul that nearly ended in divorce my wife and I came to an agreement that, in the interests of marital peace, we would always book seats well separated on all future long-haul flights.
We say farewell at the boarding gate, ignore each other for the duration of the flight (including all stopovers), then reunite at baggage pickup at our destination.
It's actually from "Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan.
They seem to go out of their way to make the entire experience as miserable as possible, and then they seem surprised that they keep losing money. I'm sure most folks would drop an extra 50-100$ if the seats were comfortable and the people working for the airline didn't always seem on the brink of suicide.
I think the airlines, and now retail are an excellent example of what happens when you let the MBAs run all of your decision makings, they screw the customer at every chance to maximize profits until the customer gets sick of it, the company goes bankrupt, and they move on to the next sucker.
They only make that money in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens. On paper in regular countries, they are losing money, hence the GP's confusion.
You have been a busy little bee haven't you WindBourne.
lying about beef, lying about electric cars, lying about CO2 emissions, lying about Aircon, lying about other people being liars.
Now you are just making stuff up again. Where is your evidence.
You should focus on having honour instead of worrying about how to spell it.
5. For any ejection or denied-boarding of a passenger not coming under the oversell rule, the carrier must file a report with the FAA detailing the situation and attaching signed statements by all crew and passengers involved. No more ejecting a passenger because "somebody felt uneasy about this person."
5) skip #5. It is already done by the Pilot. It is filed with the airlines.
Do you understand English?
You know logging in doesn't turn your lies into the truth right?
You can't get "classic" business class on international flights anymore. Domestic first-class seats - 2x2 instead of 3x3 on standard narrow-body jets, a little more legroom - used to be available as international business, at about the same premium (roughly 2-3x as expensive as coach). Nowadays, you can get the extra legroom in premium economy, but if you want any more width, or to be able to sit next to your wife and nobody else, you're ponying up $6k+ per ticket to jump the pond. Yeah, you get the lay-flat seats, and tons of space, but Jesus it's a lot of money.