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

Southwest cattle call

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

Re:Southwest cattle call

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. I love how Delta lets me escape the children. Let other people deal with them for 2 hours. Their cost in lost sales on the next flight is a whole lot more than the potential revenue from their extortion.

Re:Southwest cattle call

[AmiMoJo]

That would make it worse. People would leave 1 seat gaps between them and the next person, and then when families and couples come along later they would have to ask them to move or be split up.

Particularly for families with children being together is quite important, and benefits the other passengers as well.

Re:Southwest cattle call

[Jfetjunky]

While I generally agree, if you have kids, it's not necessarily anyone else's duty to make special concessions for you (it IS a CHOICE after all). This I think, crosses the line pretty obviously. It is not that it just so happen that families got split up, which I would totally expect as the larger your party gets, the harder it is to get contiguous seating. However, the claim is that families were specifically targeted and split up to exploit their known desire to sit together. It's quite obviously a predatory practice.

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.

Re:Southwest cattle call

[PPH]

The first flight I ever took as a kid was when I was 6 years old. Back during Eisenhower's presidency. Years later my parents told me that when they purchased my ticket, the airline asked if I was well behaved. They reserved the right to refuse to carry small children due to the 'discomfort' that they might cause other passengers. I was OK and got to spend 10 minutes in the cockpit during the flight.

[Sigh] Those were the good old days.

Re:Southwest cattle call

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you like to watch gladiator movies, Timmy?

Re:Southwest cattle call

[nerdonamotorcycle]

It's not just a matter of convenience, "togetherness", and personal desire to keep parents near their children aboard an aircraft. There's a safety issue in letting kids sit next to their parents. If something bad happens aboard the aircraft, a child will instinctively seek out his or her parent for assistance. Having a bunch of panicked kids running around the plane looking for Mom or Dad, or a bunch of panicked adults looking for their children, can screw up attempts to deal with the situation and/or to evacuate the aircraft.

If nothing else, the closer a parent is to their child, the quicker they can take appropriate action if a child starts acting frightened, bored, noisy, or rambunctious in a way that's likely to cause distress to other passengers.

"Crack Down"-Should be Forced Rebates & Penalt

[mykepredko]

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.

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

We need an Airline Policy Standards Act

[Applehu Akbar]

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!"