patrick.net

Dan8267 says

This is one of the reasons why airlines, including Delta, tell parents to purchase a seat for toddlers rather than putting them in their laps.

The ticket wasn't in his name.

Straw Man says

The ticket wasn't in his name.

So what. The facts are
1. The tickets were purchased by the family.
2. The seat was intended for the child.
3. Delta tells parents to purchase separate seats for their young children.
4. The child's safety was threatened by demanding it be placed on the parent's lap. See oxygen mask point.
5. This incident had absolutely nothing to do with whose name is on the ticket.
6. The sole reason the airline employees illegally ordered the parents to place the child on their laps is to save the airline from having to pay out the federally required compensation for denying the family their seats.
7. The airline has the right to deny the seats to the family, but they do not have the right to
- force the child to sit on the parents lap, endangering the child
- threaten the parents with arrest for not endangering their child
- split the family up by denying the child a seat but still charging the parents for theirs or not giving compensation for the loss of all three seats. You can't leave your child at the airport while you fly away.

The airline's action were criminal. The fact that the employees acted on behalf of a corporation should not protect them from the long arm of the long. If a person acting on behalf of a major corporation caused a toddler to die from directly endangering it's life, that's still criminal.

Dan8267 says

2. The seat was intended for the child.

At the time of purchase, it was intended for a different child. That is why it was in the other child's name. I believe that was the technicality that the airline used to take the seat back. The ticket is non-transferable, even between kids in the same family, and the airlines enforced that. So, it was probably legal, although tremendously dickish.

Another dickish thing that airlines do is enforce a 45 minute early rule for people traveling with children. I don't know what the age cutoff is, but my wife and I were pretty surprised when we got to the airport 40 minutes before our flight. Because we were travelling with a toddler, they had already sold our tickets to somebody else.

To add insult to injury, our tickets were American tickets flying on an Alaska Airlines flight or some such thing. So, on another technicality, they refused to put us on the other Alaska Airlines direct flight later that day. We had to go through American Airlines to get rebooked, and this required a multi-city flight from a different airport. A $50 Uber ride was the beginning of the rest of our fucked up day which of course was filled with more delays and cancellations. We had to stay over in another city that night and arrived at our final destination the following day.

The biggest dick-move that married people have to deal with is the fact that the airlines absolutely do not honor the seat reservations made through various online booking systems. That seems to mean fuck all by the time you check in.

Here's an hypothesis: Those to be ejected are picked by algorithms, because "People make mistakes, not the Holy Math". The algos don't select for nuance like same last name people on the same flight. The crews cannot reject the decision and must enforce it.

Dan8267 says

The ticket wasn't in his name.

So what.

So fact. It wasn't technically/legally his seat. It was just a seat which remained free because someone (his 18 y.o. brother in this case) didn't show up.

If they bought that seat in his name they wouldn't have the shitty day they ended up having.

Airlines need their own Right to Refuse Service signs:

"If you think paying for a ticket reserves your right to service, think again."

Pass the Air Traveller's Bill of Rights.

Clearly overbooking is also a safety issue.

YesYNot says

At the time of purchase, it was intended for a different child. That is why it was in the other child's name. I believe that was the technicality that the airline used to take the seat back. The ticket is non-transferable, even between kids in the same family, and the airlines enforced that. So, it was probably legal, although tremendously dickish.

Somebody else has bought the ticket they technically forfeited when the son whose name was on the ticket didn't show up.Why that person had to suffer? Because some family bought a cheap non-transferrable, fixed-date, non-refundable ticket but wanted it to be treated as something else?

joeyjojojunior says

The free market does a horrible job in markets with very inelastic demand like healthcare. Profit maximizing companies will always raise prices to ridiculous levels--because they can.

You have a good point, but frivolous lawsuits is still the main cause of ridiculous health care costs.

Dan8267 says

The entire airline staff should be arrested for wreckless endangerment of a child. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to have a two-year-old unbuckled on someone else's lap on an airplane if anything happened to the plane?

It's also against Delta's own policy - that 2 year olds be in car seats.

I've struggled with airlines on this before, and had to google the company's own policy to show the Crew. Not only did they want my kid out of the car seat, but wanted to store AND charge us as checked baggage. This only happens on US Airlines, not the Argentinian or Panamanian Carriers.

Now that boomers don't have young kids, they want everything re-arranged to their convenience. Just like they killed affordable tuition and affordable housing starts after they graduated and brought a house.

Ironman says

FortWayne says

That's because we are a very unhealthy nation. People stuff their faces all day with all kinds of junk food, there are consequences for that.

Yet, there are some here that think that behavior should be rewarded with FREE healthcare (paid by others). Go figure.

When Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake" she did not literally mean it. Now they eat too much cake.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

Pass the Air Traveller's Bill of Rights.

Clearly overbooking is also a safety issue.

Overbooking has nothing to do with this particular case. Whether the seat they forfeited was filled via overbooking or via last-minute sale or by some passenger on stand-by doesn't matter. They didn't fucking have the fucking ticket for the fucking 2 y.o. child, but insisted on getting the seat, that's all.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

Not only did they want my kid out of the car seat, but wanted to store AND charge us as checked baggage.

Fake news: car seats and strollers are checked for free by all US carries. And every foreign carrier which flies to US for that matter.

Moreover, if they insist that you carry-on bag must be checked after you brought it on the plane and there is no space of it in overhead bins, they will also check it for free.

Straw Man says

Because some family bought a cheap non-transferrable, fixed-date, non-refundable ticket but wanted it to be treated as something else?

I don't know the full details, b/c it wasn't in the article, but I'm betting that they did check the kid in either at the counter or a kiosk. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to bring the carrier on.

So, the airline found out about the switcheroo somehow, either by the fact that the kid never showed an ID to TSA, because the passengers told the airline, or because the computer told them to kick the 18 yr old off the plane, and they went and found a 2 yr old in the seat. I agree with you that the airline had a technicality on their side, but I doubt it was really a problem caused by these people bringing one son instead of another to the airport.

It's still a dick-move. People are learning that the airlines will fuck you over at the drop of a hat if it is technically possible and in their short term best interest. This behavior and frequent delays devalue an airline ticket, by the way.

This still has to get through the Senate, right?

Seats need to be treated as a security, you buy it you own that seat until the airline gets you to your destination.
Don't sell it if you don't want it gone, and same for buying them. A big part of airline prices is the bulk manipulation of seats.
It's no different than Ticketmaster, then the thousands of investors who have an inside relationship to buy up 80% of a venue seats for an event then sell them a marked up prices.
On top of that manipulation, you can be kicked off the plane because one of their best butt buddies, needs that seat to put together a sweet 2000 seat deal he's working on, so the airlines oblige.
At least once you buy a scalped ticket you wont be thrown out of your seat, after you've sat down. Even if the ticket was bogus.
I saw Phish in 2012 NYE in Miami, my friend and I just showed up and bought a ticket outside.
We were seated inside, when an usher came over with a couple, who had tickets(theirs looked more official actually) that matched ours.
The guy scanned them both and they both passed, so he told my friend and I to go down into the general admission area on the floor. Which was cooler anyway.

You know what let the ticket scalpers sell airline tickets yeah!

Straw Man says

They didn't fucking have the fucking ticket for the fucking 2 y.o. child, but insisted on getting the seat, that's all.

They brought a ticket. One family member used it instead of another, and by using it they complied with Delta's recommendations for child seating. A child ticket may have been cheaper, so Delta got to keep the extra fare paid for an adult family member.

Kicking the whole family off the plane was horrible customer service.

Since the airlines won't do the minimum, the government has to. It's a small price to pay for the massive taxpayer subsidies, from the special-just-for-airlines lower gas tax rate to the construction and maintenance of airports from top to bottom.

Overbooking is a safety and efficiency issue, and it's getting more frequent now that the airlines have increased the average seating per plane.

How many flights are delayed ($$$), how many cops need to be called ($$$), how many other problems are related to overbooking situations on planes ($$$)?

Another great reform is month-by-month terminal gate rental, with premiums paid for premium timeslots, which will spread out the schedule and increase safety for ATC guys. Do away with hub airports.

rando says

This still has to get through the Senate, right?

The first time they tried this bill, the media and public got wind of it, and there was too much backlash to get it passed. This time, they gave the tea party some concessions, and then the bill was rammed through quickly, before the public figured out what was in it. There's no chance it will pass through the senate without major changes, and it is still unlikely that the Senate and House will actually agree on something. Even if it doesn't pass, the house Republicans can at least claim that they passed a repeal bill and the Senate dropped the ball when campaigning in 2 yrs. They even get to claim that they covered people with preexisting conditions, because they found $8 billion. This is enough to give each person with a preexisting condition around $100, but no matter. They'll say it was funded. This is 1 dimensional chess.

Dan8267 says

2. The seat was intended for the child.

The seat was purchased for a different child, not the one that was sitting in it.

Ironman says

Still running with that false narrative, are you? Try reading the other parts of the thread above.

blah blah blah false narrative blah blah

Your post added nothing of interest. You read some article on 'the hill' where people play a shell game with the definition of a preexisting condition. The gist of the article is that Obamacare places the cost of the high risk pool, which fails because it places the burden on too few people. Yet, Obamacare costs too much for the government and for the participants. The GOP solution is to just have the government pay for the high risk pool. So this $8Billion ($25 per citizen) will allow the government to cut a couple of hundred billion in taxes. In addition to the government saving $25 for each $1 spent, individuals on the market will have their premiums reduced by 40% by removing the high risk people. Win win win win win!!!! Everybody is winning!!!!! I love math!!!!!

Here's what Kaiser has to say about the number with preexisting conditions.

If this GOP bill does happen to pass, I hope that someone in the press makes a database of all of the people who end up getting no treatment and dying early due to the passage of the bill. It might be cathartic for the people who have to watch their loved ones die without treatment, and the journalist would probably get a Pullitzer.

YesYNot says

I believe that was the technicality that the airline used to take the seat back.

So they unethically used some technical ploy to fuck over their customers. That still doesn't make their reckless endangerment of the child or threats to the parents any less legal. And even if that ploy manage to get them not to have to pay the federal mandated amount to the parents for the child's seat, they would still have to pay the full mandated amount for each of the parent's seats. And the bad publicity is certainly more costly than simply paying a single person even the maximum amount to give up a seat.

Furthermore, this is yet another reason it should be utterly illegal to overbook. Overbooking is fraud. Plain and simple.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

Now that boomers don't have young kids, they want everything re-arranged to their convenience.

So fucking true. Can Boomers just not be selfish once in their lives?

APOCALYPSEFUCK_is_ADORABLE says

ONLY Singapore Air gets this really right. Families with kids are boarded and apparently settled before anyone else. At level-off cabin staff marks the infant and toddler seats with colored markers and 10 minutes later they reappear with foods for them, I am imagining here, in age appropriate preparations. 20 minutes after level-off, peace and quiet.

That sounds exactly right. For everyone on the flight. You give your kid a cookie from your bag, she won't want it, but if the stewardess brings them a bag of stale pretzels she will munch those happily for an hour!

ThreeBays says

Because the seat was booked in another person's name, it is perfectly legitimate for the airline to treat it as a "no show" and cancel that ticket on any remaining legs of the flight.

First of all, that's a shitty rule that exists only to defraud the customer. Second, that's no excuse for criminally endangering the life of a child. Third, that doesn't change the fact that overbooking is fraud and should be prosecuted as a crime.

Respectfully, in this particular case, people are blaming the wrong villain. They should demand the FAA change policy regarding "Lap Children: The Most Unsafe Passengers on a Plane". This case would not have happened if the airline had not been allowed to sell a supposedly "safe" (but really unsafe) lap child ticket for the 2yo.

As for overbooking, the solution is as Lashkar said, a passenger bill of rights requiring minimum compensation for passengers who get bumped. These passengers and most others bought the cheapest tickets available, ignoring fine print that is deliberately too long and complicated to read and compare from one airline to another. As long as airlines can sell tickets too confusing to compare, they can appear to compete on price while really competing on confusion. Airlines have a right to re-sell a no-show's empty seat, and in fact they should do that rather than wasting fuel flying empty seats, but where they must accomodate a "must-ride" (e.g. the Dao case) they should be required to offer enough to get volunteers instead of ejecting passengers from seats the passengers had paid for.

BTW, Scott Adams described this type of "market" very well as a "Confusopoly". It applies especially strongly in the medical insurance sector. As long as they can keep you confused and asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about your answers. As long as they can confuse the market, they don't really need to compete on value.

Ironman says

-

Does Ironman even understand that if the employment rate is hitting a 10 year low right after the end of Eight years of Obama, and a few months of Trump what that means ?

Does Ironman understand what it means if the stock market is hitting new highs right after the end of Eight years of Obama ?

It means that trends that have been going for many years have continued a few months into the Trump Presidency.

Ironman says

Is it Time to Impeach Trump??

Not sure whether impeachment is the route to go.

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/24/psychiatry-experts-claim-that-trump-is-unfit-for-presidency-due-to-dangerous-mental-illness/

“We have an ethical responsibility to warn the public about Donald Trump’s dangerous mental illness,” Gartner said, according to The Independent.

He cited Trump’s claim of having the largest inauguration audience in American history as proof of the president’s mental illness.

“Worse than just being a liar or a narcissist, in addition he is paranoid, delusional and grandiose thinking and he proved that to the country the first day he was president,” Gartner said. “If Donald Trump really believes he had the largest crowd size in history, that’s delusional.”

I believe this is a legitimate point. I know you guys think the lies are all really nifty, but what if he truly truly believes them ?

The petition, titled “Mental Health Professionals Declare Trump is Mentally Ill and Must Be Removed,” was signed by more than 50,000 people who self-reported as mental health professionals.

“As some prominent psychiatrists have noted, [Trump’s mental health] is the elephant in the room,” Dr. Bandy Lee, the conference organizer and assistant clinical professor at Yale University, said. “I think the public is really starting to catch on and widely talk about this now.”

Perhaps the most troubling comments came from Dr. James Gilligan, a psychiatrist and professor at New York University, who compared the danger of Trump to that of a convicted murderer or rapist, The Independent reported:

I’ve worked with some of the most dangerous people our society produces, directing mental health programs in prisons. I’ve worked with murderers and rapists. I can recognize dangerousness from a mile away. You don’t have to be an expert on dangerousness or spend 50 years studying it like I have in order to know how dangerous this man is.

Ironman says

One-Third Of Americans Are On Government Healthcare

...at a cost that exceeds what other countries spend to cover their entire populations, even adjusting for differences in populations. The cost differential results mainly from waste, fraud, and abuse (including profiteering) in the American medical insurance Confusopoly, including government insurance. We have legislation written by and for political patronage networks, not public health. Why do CHIP and other government programs cover toxic placebos and disproven modalities? Because, on Capitol Hill, the drug companies never lose. Why do American hospitals charge 3x-10x more than hospitals anywhere else in the world, often for worse results? Because, with $1T/yr in revenue, mostly from government, they can buy even more politicians than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If you thought only the Military Industrial Complex could buy politicians and get people killed for power and profit, look again at the medical industrial complex. The game continues because people refuse to ask the right questions.

Why should you be required to pay more than $100bn/yr for coverage mandates that cover modalities with a 90% failure rate? When a lucrative drug or treatment fails, the revenue recipients pay politicians to mandate coverage. Why should you be required to pay for excessive diagnostic radiation that confers no benefit but increases the risk of cancer and premature death? Cynical practitioners call it "investing in future patients": killing people sooner and more expensively increases revenues, which are increasing even as life expectancy is falling due to Obamneycare.

Instead of demanding that coverage should be limited to things that are clearly effective, i.e. at least a 50% difference compared to doing nothing, people obsess over who will be covered and who will pay. As long as they can keep you divided and trolling each other about "pre-existing conditions," they don't have to worry about you seeing through the game.

Now that the House of Representatives has voted to change Obamneycare, healthcare is "in play." That gives you a chance, if you care. Write your Senators and tell them you see through the game. Tell them that "essential benefits" are by definition only those things that are clearly (a) essential and (b) beneficial. Toxic placebos and disproved modalities are neither essential nor beneficial, and should not be covered.

Don't be fooled by the endless divide & misrule game. YOU ARE ALREADY PAYING FOR GENUINELY COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL HEALTHCARE, you are simply not getting it. Instead, you are getting robbed by patronage networks that lard up coverage mandates with crap that shouldn't even be legal let alone covered. They keep you divided and distracted with their false binary frames.

Tell your Senators to replace current patronage revenue maximization programs with true emergency coverage for everyone, and to add in vaccine coverage so we don't see so many morons spreading measles. BTW, did you know Somali Muslims can also be anti-vaxxers who spread measles to other kids? Now you know. Something to think about before you insist we must pay to import more of them, as if we didn't already have too many anti-vaxxers in the school system.

Ironman says

Oh Marcus, go look at what the market did for the two previous years before Trump won in November and report back what you find. (I know you won't do that, as it will destroy your narrative)

It's not unusual for the market to consolidate before or after a big move. This is only a testing stage coming out of that consolidation. But we know that Obama presided over a move in the S & P of over 1000 points. Sure it's up a few hundred point since Trump was elected. All aboard !

Ironman says

Do you really believe that crap?

Yes. Unlike you I don't dispute facts.

P.S. bob2356 regarding your chart of Medicare spending and the gap between that and total annual spending on and by Americans over 65, consider this:

"A majority of people over age 65 will require some type of long-term care services during their lifetime, and over 40 percent of people will need a period of care in a nursing home, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The cost of that care can financially cripple a family.
***
In 2012, a private room cost an average of $248 daily, or more than $90,500 annually, according to a 2012 survey by MetLife. A semi-private room ran $222 daily, or more than $81,000 per year."

Those daily room costs are not generally covered by Medicare. Patients must pay privately, either via insurance if they have it, or using up all of their assets until they are bankrupt and become eligibile for Medicaid. Elliemae has written extensively about the waste, fraud, and abuse in these facilities, and anyone who has visited can tell you most of them are not worth nearly what they cost at least considering the level of service that the same money could buy elsewhere.

Ironman says

Marcus, I'm trying to figure out if you're just plain dishonest or.... if you just don't see reality.... Which is it??

S and P for the last 2 years of Obama:

You should look into the way markets behave and then get back to me. Markets make large moves then consolidate. Yes there was a consolidation phase (the last couple years) after the move of 1000 points in the S & P that occurred during the Obama years. The consolidation phase is referred to by some as the "cause" period of the move that follows.

But this could be a head fake.

curious2 says

P.S. bob2356 regarding your chart of Medicare spending and the gap between that and total annual spending on and by Americans over 65, consider this:

Which chart specifically?

APOCALYPSEFUCK_is_ADORABLE says

More unnerving, they seem to be able to ambulate without moving their feet or knees.

Maybe they're really fembots with machine gun jubblies! Yeah, baby!

bob2356 says

Which chart specifically?

The chart you posted that omitted Medicare "Advantage" among other things.

Ironman says

The ONLY way the market went up under Obama was because of the printing of $4.5 TRILLION and moving rates to zero.

Monetary policy has always been there, going back many decades, it's just that becasue of the liquidity trap that ensued after the crash o 08, the only tool the fed had was QE, becasue you can't lower rates when they're at zero unless you want to go negative.

At least you're finally honest enough to acknowledge that history didn't start 2 years ago. I'm surprised.

So let's assume that you're right and that the thousand point up under Obama are due to QE. THen, when QE stops and the market consolidates intead of going back down, don't you have to credit that to OBama ?

Also, considering that Trump is promising to spend like a drunken sailor and cut taxes like crazy, on corporations, shouldn't the market be up more ? Maybe the reason it's not is the extreme uncertainty caused by having an unstable President ?

So what does that say about liberal policies such as way overboard political correctness, illegal immigrant safe zones, and refugee/immigration from un-vettable bronze age countries promoting terrorism, that half the country would rather put a crazy person in power than suffer another 4 years of the above?

marcus says

Ironman says

Is it Time to Impeach Trump??

Not sure whether impeachment is the route to go.

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/24/psychiatry-experts-claim-that-trump-is-unfit-for-presidency-due-to-dangerous-mental-illness/

BlueSardine says

So what does that say about liberal policies such as way overboard political correctness, illegal immigrant safe zones, and refugee/immigration from un-vettable bronze age countries promoting terrorism, that half the country would rather put a crazy person in power than suffer another 4 years of the above?

I like your choice of issues.

What it says is that propaganda can be used to manipulate the idiot population over issues that aren't even big issues.

1) Politcal correctness ? Yeah, identity politics has gone too far, but only in the sense that it triggers "what about me" idiots that blow it out of proportion. So I'm not for it, but mostly becasue of how easy it is for right wing media to manipulate you guys over it.

2) Illegal immigration has not been increasing for more than a decade. So we have a con artist that has lied that he's going to turn it around or make them leave ? Or is it that he's not going to let them leave ?

3) Syria is bronze age country promoting terrorism ? Do you even know the story of what led up to the current problems in Syria ?

So we can't help 1000 refugees (after extreme vetting (not a new thing)) becasue of some non zero risk that one of them is a terrorist ?

marcus says

Does Ironman even understand that if the employment rate is hitting a 10 year low right after the end of Eight years of Obama,

Trump knows those numbers are still grossly padded with Obama's bogus numbers.
If Trump leaves Obama's math as is and does not fix it, Trump will have -6 unemployment rate in 4 years.
He's using Obama's lies and propaganda systems in place to use against Liberal media trying to break him down.
Look how wonderful jobs growth is everybody!

The Washington Post
"Democracy Dies in Darkness"

Nothing is darker than Republican voters.