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.

Comments

Re:Southwest cattle call

[the_skywise]

I've flown both regularly and there's interesting trade-offs to both systems. Both encourage you to pay more for a better seat - either with early bird boarding on SWA or pay for a seat selection. SWA has only the "one class" of seating whereas other airlines like Delta have first class and now "comfort" seating classes which require additional upcharges along with the seat choice upcharge. (Although it gets further complicated because the seat selection may be included in the price of the ticket depending on what ticket class you purchase.
With Delta I discovered it made no sense for me to be at the boarding gate until I got the text that boarding had begun because a> my seat was always going to be there and b> boarding is stupidly slow so being at the gate ahead of time meant standing in line for 20 minutes while platinum medallion super club business class gets to board first (but not before those with small children!) (and heaven forbid your plane is there but hasn't been prepped yet so boarding time is delayed.)
Southwest on the other hand bakes "encouragement to board" into the process. You pay for early bird boarding to get a better seat so you HAVE to be at the boarding gate and in the line on time to get the seat (but not before those with small children!). Even if you don't pay for the earlybird boarding you still have to be ready to line up for the other boarding groups or risk ending up in a middle seat. Boarding tends to just be faster that way but at the expense of you having to take a more active involvement.

Profitable business [Re:"Crack Down"-Should be...]

[Geoffrey.landis]

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

Re:1st step: Name and shame

[GameboyRMH]

Found the source of the stats (on page 20):

http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/do...

Among the airlines in the survey, Ryanair is the worst offender by far, Emirates and Virgin Atlantic are also splitting up families more than average. The lowest were TUI and Flybe.