The Goat Pen

hedge wrote:What about an app that allows everybody on the plane to put in their bid on what they'll take to get bumped? Then they just take the lowest bidders and it's all voluntary. Kinda like a Dutch auction...

eCat wrote:I just read that if you are involuntarily bumped then you can demand a cash reward as opposed to a voucher.

I took the voucher once - a free round trip domestic ticket and then found out it expired in a year and was non transferable when I read the fine print.

It was essentially worthless to me. But I volunteered to be bumped so that's on me.

It should have never got to the point where a passenger was seated on the plane and then asked to volunteer to leave. If you're sitting in the terminal with luggage in tow, people will jump at a $500 voucher.

Seated, ready to leave with your stuff in the overhead bin, that price just doubled easily. In this case that wasn't enough.

hedge wrote:What about an app that allows everybody on the plane to put in their bid on what they'll take to get bumped? Then they just take the lowest bidders and it's all voluntary. Kinda like a Dutch auction...

United Airlines clarified Tuesday that the flight in which a man was dragged off, screaming, Sunday was not overbooked.
According to USA Today, United and its regional affiliate, Republic Airlines, which operated the flight, needed to remove four passengers to accommodate crew members who needed to be in Louisville on Monday. United had initially said the flight was overbooked.
United’s chief executive, meanwhile, defended his employees, saying the passenger, who refused to give up his seat, was belligerant. The battered and bloodied man was dragged back to the terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
One of the officers involved in the incident was placed on leave pending an investigation. But international outrage continued Tuesday, with United’s stock price falling, memes exploding and disturbing videos of the incident shared across the world.