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Another reason to hate the airlines.

Jack Fabulous said:
And the difference between this and "price gouging" is what, exactly?
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Seriously. The closer you get to flight date, the higher the costs tend to be, and if you do it in a high travel time, the costs go up significantly. Try booking a flight for Thanksgiving 2 days out. But first look at the costs now.

Reality bursts your little emotional spasm.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
I claimed clearly that we do not do capitalism now.

I dont have a name for what this is, where the success comes not from winning in the marketplace but from the ability to use wealth to corrupt Washington and then writing the rules such that allow them to suck up all the wealth after exploiting the vast majority of Americans, both the living and the yet to be born.

Treason Maybe.
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That's exactly how what we call "capitalism" has operated since the dawn of the Industrial Age.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Because sending more seats either with bigger planes or more planes is out of the question right?

They could do that, but this is more profits for less work, so this is just fine and dandy!
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Without knowing the details there is no way to know why prices got raised. If we know the details the market determines the price.

A couple years ago I took a flight on Frontier Winston-Denver. Total cost $150 RT. First day first flight price. Others on the plane including the person who sat next to me paid over $500. And there were no weather problems.
 
Fares for last minute travel are always higher than fares purchased well in advance. Further, the fares for the last remaining seats are always higher than the earlier ones purchased on a plane. This is not new. I fly ATL to PVD quite frequently. I can get tickets for $140 if I book it on the right day of the week and far enough out. Book that seat for tomorrow. You are going to pay $650 - $700.
 
OlNate said:
Umm, it was definitely price gouging, and public outcry fixed it:

Airlines cap prices for Hurricane Irma evacuees - Sep. 6, 2017

Never underestimate your power as consumers, or the willingness of corporations to bend you over. At least this time they got some pushback.
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It wasn't price gouging. I know that most people do not understand this but airlines do not just sit around and decide how to price the tickets for their seats. They use computer models and software that predicts what people are willing to pay for seats. A company called Mather Economics is a big one involved with this. Airlines are expensive to run. It is important that the airlines get the maximum fare for each seat. Important to whom? It's important to keep the airline in business.

The fare in the article that you quoted was not even from Delta. It was from Expedia for a Delta seat.

Delta told CNNMoney the user had seen that price on Expedia (EXPE), not Delta's website, and the company worked with her to get a better price for her trip. Delta told CNNMoney that it never raised fares in response to Irma. Rather, the ticket prices customers are seeing are standard for booking last-minute seats amid heightened interest in flights out of Florida.
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Southern Dad said:
It wasn't price gouging. I know that most people do not understand this but airlines do not just sit around and decide how to price the tickets for their seats. They use computer models and software that predicts what people are willing to pay for seats. A company called Mather Economics is a big one involved with this. Airlines are expensive to run. It is important that the airlines get the maximum fare for each seat. Important to whom? It's important to keep the airline in business.

The fare in the article that you quoted was not even from Delta. It was from Expedia for a Delta seat.
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Based on the fact that they are lowering them, I would suggest the model was wrong in this case...

And if you're suggesting that it's more important for an airline to stay in business than it is for people to be able to evacuate an area expecting a massive hurricane, well, I'm not thinking we'll find much common ground here...
 
Mr Person said:
That's exactly how what we call "capitalism" has operated since the dawn of the Industrial Age.
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Sir, what matters is how the system was designed, what the minders of the system claimed that it did, how it claimed it did it.

It is plain to see that somehow your education has never alerted you to the reality that once upon a time the minders of the system honestly believed in and honestly tried to run a system that served the greater good, that once upon a time the lectures and plans were actually pretty close to reality. .

We lost that some time ago, I think I would argue early Seventies.
 
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Hawkeye10 said:
I claimed clearly that we do not do capitalism now.

I dont have a name for what this is, where the success comes not from winning in the marketplace but from the ability to use wealth to corrupt Washington and then writing the rules such that allow them to suck up all the wealth after exploiting the vast majority of Americans, both the living and the yet to be born.

Treason Maybe.
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Just wanted to make sure I understood. In my mind this is the natural outcome of Capitalism. It seems a natural next step to parley financial success into political clout. That type of competitive and/or insecure person isn't going to be satisfied with the money on it's own.

If think, if anything, the "nice guy" Capitalism you seem to prefer was an impure form at best (or more likely, some variant of Socialism) as people used to be more concerned about their standing in their local community than they generally are nowadays.

Capitalism itself is amoral, as I learned it. So to my eye the good you describe had nothing to do with Capitalism. I'd even argue that Capitalism's "success" and the wide effects of that were in large part responsible for the loss of morality you seem to be describing.
 
WillyPete said:
Just wanted to make sure I understood. In my mind this is the natural outcome of Capitalism. It seems a natural next step to parley financial success into political clout. That type of competitive and/or insecure person isn't going to be satisfied with the money on it's own.

If think, if anything, the "nice guy" Capitalism you seem to prefer was an impure form at best (or more likely, some variant of Socialism) as people used to be more concerned about their standing in their local community than they generally are nowadays.

Capitalism itself is amoral, as I learned it. So to my eye the good you describe had nothing to do with Capitalism. I'd even argue that Capitalism's "success" and the wide effects of that were in large part responsible for the loss of morality you seem to be describing.
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No, that which destroys the assets of the society without exchanging it for better was never intended to be part of capitalism, we were supposed to be good enough people to notice the problem and to then solve the problem.

The importance of having an educated and intelligent citizenry informed by the 4th Estate served by honest and even more intelligent servants in the capital who would brainstorm and implement a solution...

That was the backstop to the errors in the plan, the plan for what to do when the system no longer served, that is to say no longer fulfilled its mandate.

We cant manage anymore.
 
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Hawkeye10 said:
No, that which destroys the assets of the society without exchanging it for better was never intended to be part of capitalism, we were supposed to be good enough people to notice the problem and to then solve the problem.

The importance of having an educated and intelligent citizenry informed by the 4th Estate served by honest and even more intelligent servants in the capital who would brainstorm and implement a solution...

That was the backstop to the errors in the plan, the plan for what to do when the system no longer served, that is to say no longer fulfilled its mandate.

We cant manage anymore.
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We don't have to agree, though I'd love to see some sources.

What reading I've done on Capitalism clashes pretty mightily with the whole notion of the greater good.
 
OlNate said:
Based on the fact that they are lowering them, I would suggest the model was wrong in this case...

And if you're suggesting that it's more important for an airline to stay in business than it is for people to be able to evacuate an area expecting a massive hurricane, well, I'm not thinking we'll find much common ground here...
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Yes, the model does not take into account an evacuation. It looks at available seats, demand, and sale rate of seats.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Because sending more seats either with bigger planes or more planes is out of the question right?

They could do that, but this is more profits for less work, so this is just fine and dandy!
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Bigger planes flown in. Paid for by whom?
 
Deuce said:
Bigger planes flown in. Paid for by whom?
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The airlines. Another problem is finding enough crews to fly the aircraft because the crews need to get their families to safety.
 
Southern Dad said:
The airlines. Another problem is finding enough crews to fly the aircraft because the crews need to get their families to safety.
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Right. Bigger planes coming in costs the airlines more money.

Inbound flights right now are freaking empty, people.

Next problem: the bigger planes aren't created by a magic wand. You have to divert them from their regular schedule. So the flights previously planned for more seats to other destinations... what, just tell those passengers to **** off?
 
Deuce said:
Right. Bigger planes coming in costs the airlines more money.

Inbound flights right now are freaking empty, people.

Next problem: the bigger planes aren't created by a magic wand. You have to divert them from their regular schedule. So the flights previously planned for more seats to other destinations... what, just tell those passengers to **** off?
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If it means helping people evacuate away from a "catastrophic" hurricane? Ya... Don't know about you, but if I knew my seat could help save a life, I'd do so happily. I thought you Americans were supposed to be good at this....you were at one time, what's up now?
 
OlNate said:
If it means helping people evacuate away from a "catastrophic" hurricane? Ya... Don't know about you, but if I knew my seat could help save a life, I'd do so happily. I thought you Americans were supposed to be good at this....you were at one time, what's up now?
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Please. People hate airlines. You think they're going to be ok with having their flight canceled?
 
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