Ideas for air travel and how to really run an airline
A couple of years ago I released my list of factors by which robotaxi companies might compete. Many people wonder if there will be a natural monopoly, limiting us to one or two companies per city, or if we might get more.
When you travel, a whole ton of online resources are available, but there is still great value in the classic guidebook that you pay money for. Free tourist information (particularly from tourist boards) is not acting in your interest. Some of the ad or booking supported travel sites do give independent information (or aggregated user information) but they have their biases as well, and are also full of review-spam.
Recently the TSA indicated it is once again considering having no security on planes under 60 seats at small airports. This is controversial, of course, but many security experts think it is the right course for a number of reasons:
When I get off planes in San Francisco and summon a Lyft or Uber, I usually have to wait 8 to 10 minutes. That's because the airport has forced these companies to force drivers to wait in the "cell phone waiting lot" which is quite far from the terminal. When I don't have checked bags, it's OK because I know this and I summon the car while walking out of the gate, but with bags I have to wait for my bag before I can summon.
When doing a road trip, I like to have a cooler in the back of the car. This lets you have cold drinks and snacks, and also means you can shop for things that need refrigeration, particularly things like cheese in Europe. You can buy groceries at any convenient time, even if you won't get to your hotel until later in the day.
Another big plus, when you stay in hotels that have no fridge, is that you get an in-room (literal) icebox.
I hate tour groups. I hate the very rare times I am part of one, and I hate encountering them at tourist locations. And with few exceptions, I suspect most people also hate several aspects of them, other than perhaps when it's a group of family or friends. Like so much of the tourist world, I think there is immense room for improvement thanks to new communications and transportation technology.
I'm off in June to do some speaking in Europe. I'm flying to Milan in business class from San Francisco for $2,800 on UA and Air Canada, which is about the lowest price I've ever seen for biz class to Europe in summer on the major airlines. The coach fare can be as low as $600 for those not able to splurge. Let me tell you how to use these fares, even if it's not Italy you wish to visit.
As a customer, the pricing plans of the car rental companies baffle me. I mean I understand about the goals for differential pricing -- finding ways to charge richer customers more money -- but still, I find it very frustrating, and I am curious why one of the majors doesn't have the courage to break out of the current pricing models and win over customers.
A sad reality today at most academic conferences is that it's fairly common for at least one speaker to not make it due to visa problems. This is not just true because of the USA's reduced welcome to foreigners, it happens in other places as well.
So many of the world's great sites are made much worse by the presence of "touts" (also known as hawkers, souvenir sellers etc.) particularly the ones who are pushy, constantly talking to you to advertise their wares, or even getting in your way. They can range from those who just fill the site with cheap souvenirs to those that constantly try to start a conversation with you about something else as a way of catching you off guard.
Companies are proposing a hybrid airliner with electric motors, a smaller battery, and a liquid fuel powered generator.
One advantage of this design is you can get the redundancy that safe flight needs a different way. Today all commercial airlines have 2 or more liquid fuel engines. They can still fly if they lose one.
On Nov 3 I flew on SAS from Copenhagen to San Francisco. The 11 hour flight had no food or drinks (other than water) due to a strike by the caterers, Gate Gourmet. It was actually surprisingly pleasant! (Unlike my experiences on Air Baltic which I will relate at the end of the article.)
SAS certainly could have done better. Since I checked in online I did not learn of this until, while waiting in the lounge, they announced that flights overseas would have "limited food choices." I figured that was not that big a deal, especially since I was seated in business class. On the way out I asked about it and they said that "limited" actually meant "absolutely none" and I was given a coupon, which I took to the airport 7-11 to get some sandwiches and snacks. There was a giant line at the 7-11 of course, but I made it to the flight.
(Trigger warning: If you only fly in coach, it will seem pompous to read complaints about problems in business class. The harsh reality is that if you travel frequently for your work, spending all that time in the compressed horror of coach simply isn't an option, especially for a big guy like me. You won't be able to do your job. So I pay the extreme prices of business class because otherwise I would not travel. If you pay that much, you expect a higher quality of flight.)
While annoying, there were some fairly positive results of the experience. The flight was actually much more pleasant without all the constant distraction of food and drink service. It makes me give serious thought to the virtue of flights, even long ones, which offer boxed food and drink that you grab at the gate and take to your seat to consume when you like.
I wrote earlier about tips for hotels and AirBNBs naming things like desk space, amenities, good illumination and more, but let me add some things I would like to see in every unit (and listing) for AirBNB hosts, not all of which apply to hotels.
So many places don't have enough plugs for the modern electronics-laden technomad. So get some power strips. In particular, get the ones that have universal sockets which take US, Euro, UK and Aus/China plugs. Yes, I bring adapters but it's always nice to have some extra plugs. Put one of these power strips by the bed (especially if the plugs by the bed are occupied by lamps and other things.) Put one by the desk space -- you do have desk space, right?
What is the most important feature of your unit? Most of the time it's the view or the location, though also high on the list are its internal quality (fancy and new vs. older and plain,) the living space or the kitchen. But while everybody wants a place with a nice kitchen, living room and bed, few are shopping primarily on that.
Pick the most important feature and make it your main photo. Possibly combine two photos for that main photo. However, if you choose to show the view, make it a realistic photo or include one after. If you show the location by showing a nearby sight, put text in the photo saying "Near to this" or similar.
When I shop for properties, that main photo should grab me. If I'm looking for a view, that's probably what you want to show me. On the other hand, while location is important to me, AirBNB is already showing me that. Having a picture of the famous local landmark is pointless, unless you can see it out your window.
It is important that your photos be realistic. Many are tempted to photograph things to make them look bigger than they are, or to hide something. Don't do it. People will be disappointed and leave you bad reviews, which is worse than an unflattering photo. Yes, your "competitors" are using misleading photos but in the end they will pay for that.
This is particularly true when photographing the view. Don't take a small view only visible if you lean out on the terrace and crop it to make it seem like the view from the property. If your view is only from the terrace, use a wide angle to make it clear you're standing on that. If the view is inside, take some photos inside of the window, showing what you will see walking around the room that has the view. Photos of rooms should not be super wide angle (that makes the room look bigger than it is) but photos of the view often should be.
If you include photos of nearby things, like the town's main tourist site to show that you are near it, mark these photos as "Not from the home, 200m away" or similar.
You should show your "view" even if you have no view. People should know if the unit looks out on a courtyard or back street, and what it looks like. You may be surprised -- even a quiet back street may be exotic to the tourist.
When shooting inside including the windows and view, use a camera with an "HDR" mode (most phones do this now) or get some HDR software so your photo can show the inside and outside at the same time. And seriously, no crappy, blurry photos. I know you're not a professional photographer but today's devices make it easy to get a good shot if you hold reasonably still. You're trying to make serious money -- borrow a friend or their camera if you have to.
Throw in photos of the amenities I describe below, if you have them, to let people know they are there.
If you rent your place for longer-term tenants, consider a photo of a floor plan, if you have one, or sketch one if you can. When renting for more than a week, this is very handy.
Many AirBNB users are older and don't want a unit where they have to walk up 4 flights of stairs, or even 1 in the case of those with a mobility problem. AirBNB lets you say "elevator in building." which is good, but it should really be "Elevator in Building OR unit is on ground floor" -- and I think that people should actually check that box for ground floor units until AirBNB fixes that. Of course be clear in the listing on that, or on how many floors the guest will need to climb, and whether there will be assist for luggage.
Last night, as they were towing our plane from the gate in Miami there was a very unusual bump -- turns out they put the tow bar on wrong and damaged the landing gear. It became clear in time that we would not fly that night (FA timeout loomed.) I've seen this a lot, so I was on the phone immediately to book another flight, but I would still need a hotel voucher for the night, as would most other folks on the flight, even if they took the same flight the next day after the repair.
I will be heading to western Idaho this weekend to watch my sixth total Eclipse. That makes me a mid-grade eclipse chaser, so let me tell you some important things you need to know, which are not in some of the other eclipse guides out there. For good general sites look at places like NASA's Eclipse Guide which has nice maps or this map.
The difference between a total solar eclipse and a partial one -- even a 99% partial one -- is literally and metaphorically night and day. It's like the difference between sex and holding hands. They are really two different things with a similar sounding name. And a lunar eclipse is again something vastly different. This does not mean a high-partial eclipse is not an interesting thing, but the total eclipse is by far the most spectacular natural phenomenon visible on this planet. Beyond the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Norway, etc. So if you can get to totality, get there. Do not think you are seeing the eclipse if you don't get into the zone of totality.
Many people seek to get close to the centerline of the eclipse. This provides the longest eclipse for your area. You will only lose a modest number of seconds if you are within 15 miles of the centerline, so you don't have to get exactly there, and in fact it may be too crowded there.
On the other hand there are those who deliberately get close to the edge, giving up 30-40% of their eclipse time in order to see more "edge effects." Near the edge, the edge effects are longer and a bit more spectacular. In particular the diamond ring will be a fair bit longer, and you may see more prominences and chromosphere for longer. If this is your first eclipse, I am not sure you want to get too close to the edge. But try any of the map web sites that will tell you your duration, and get somewhere that has within 30-40 seconds of the centerline time.
You've been hearing endless talk about eclipse glasses and how well made they are. Eclipse glasses are only for the boring partial phase. They give you a way to track the progress of the moon while waiting for the main event. Once totality is over, everybody packs up and does not even bother to watch the 2nd half of the partial eclipse, that's how boring the partial part is.
But don't be one of those people who, told about the danger of eclipses, does not watch totality with your bare eyes. In fact, use binoculars in addition to your naked eyes, and perhaps a short look through a telescope -- but not during the diamond rings or any partial phase.
Update: There is a nice large sunspot group that should still be there on Eclipse day, making the partial phase more interesting to those with good eyesight.
In totality you are looking not at the sun, but its amazing atmosphere -- the "corona" -- full of streamers, and many times the size of the sun or moon. You may also see jets of fire coming off the sun, and at the start and end of totality you will see the hot red inner atmosphere of the sun, known as the chromosphere.
If you are crazy enough to be outside the total zone but close to it, you sadly still can't look with your bare eyes at any part of the eclipse.
An eclipse is most glorious in the sky but a lot of other things happen around it. As it gets very close to total you will see the nature of the sunlight change and become quite eerie. Shadows of trees will turn into collections of crescents. About 20-60 seconds before and after totality, if you have a white sheet on the ground, you will see ripples of light waving, like on the bottom of a giant swimming pool. And the shadow. You will see it approach. If you are up on a mountain or in a plane this will be more obvious. It is going at 1,000 to 2,000 miles per hour.
Something I do from time to time is a road trip in a rental car. And while car rental companies much prefer the business customer who rents a big car at a high price, then just drives it to their meeting and back to the airport, they are not averse to the less profitable road trip business.
So here are some things they could do to make it better for that sort of customer.
I've written before about overbooking and how it's good for passengers as well as for the airlines. If we have a service (airline seats, rental cars, hotel rooms) where the seller knows it's extremely likely that with 100 available slots, 20 will not show up, we can have two results:
There's a lot of bad information circulating on the famous United/Republic "passenger drag" so I wanted to consolidate a 2nd post with some of them.
It turns out the flight was probably not oversold. A UA spokesman said it wasn't. It was a fully sold flight, but a sudden need arose to move 4 flight attendants to SDF (Louisville) and they arrived at the gate after the flight had boarded. In United's contract of carriage, it defines an oversold flight as a flight where there are more passengers with confirmed reservations checked in by the check-in deadline than they have seats on the plane. That does not appear to be the case on this flight, but Republic and UA got confused about it.
That, in turn, means Republic did not have the right to invoke the clauses of the contract for oversold flights. If so, they are just plain in the wrong, and this becomes a case with far less interesting nuance. United has changed their tune (of course due to public pressure) and are going full mea culpa.
Airline reservation computers oversell all the time, and carefully calculate exactly how much to oversell. It looks like the algorithms decided to not oversell this flight. And they were right -- when they called for volunteers, nobody accepted, even at a very high price ($800 to $1,000) for a flight where most tickets are under $200. The algorithms performed perfectly.
Technically it was Republic Airline, a small regional airline dba "United Express." However, United sells and and manages the tickets and they use the brand, and it's under United's contract, so United certainly gets a lot of the responsibility. And I am impressed that UA has not tried to throw Republic under the bus here.
Republic Airways actually operates lots of regional flights for United, AA and Delta, so this could have probably happened to any of them. I don't know if they have a lot of airline specific training on bumping procedure for their teams. United may have just gotten some very bad luck of the draw here -- and then made it worse by defending it at first. And it may be that the bumping policies UA gives to Republic might have made this more likely than the ones Delta and AA give it, but I don't think they are tremendously different. Some hinges on whether the flight crew was a Republic crew, or a United crew.
But still, though it was not United, the buck stops with United, and at least now, they are not resisting that at all.
If this had been an oversold flight, their contract still does not let them remove passengers from the plane involuntarily. It says they can "deny boarding." Deny boarding does not mean remove -- there is another section of the contract on removal. More bad news for United/Republic, but again, it makes the case less interesting as it's an example of something you sort of expect -- junior employees of a regional affiliate not being properly trained on what to do in an unusual situation and thus screwing up. That happens in 100 different ways all the time, but each particular incident is rare and probably does not indicate a systemic problem. That's good -- but it is only systemic problems that are of interest to the public, and which would make you boycott a company. If the junior employees make mistakes like this too often, then you have a systemic problem to worry about. (United does not have a good reputation on this count, of course.)
New information reveals the flight crew declared themselves "must ride." I don't have a lot of details, but this is a special designation in the law (not the UA contract) which declares the crew are needed somewhere to avoid cancellation of a flight. Once a passenger is declared "must ride" the plane is required, reports say, to do everything possible to get that passenger to their destination, including delaying the plane and apparent, yes, even involuntary bumping. I am waiting for more information on this status, which would invalidate partly what I say above. They can't pull you for an oversell, but they may be able to pull you for a must-ride. The law is there to keep the aviation system humming. Once flight crews don't get to flights, it can mean disruption to more than just that flight.
No, but that's the best joke on this that I've seen.
With the mistaken impression that overselling was the cause here, a lot of people are stating overselling is evil, and Chris Christie has even called to prohibit it. That's a big mistake. Overselling is very good for airlines and the flying public. I explained that in yesterday's post but I will go into more details below. You want an airline that does at least some overselling, though one can debate how much you want.
In this situation, it needed to move those employees to crew a flight first thing out of SDF. If they had not gotten a crew there, that flight gets cancelled. Roughly 70 paying passengers get stranded against their will. While clearly nobody wants to be stranded against their will, the hard truth is you want to fly an airline that will strand (with good compensation) 4 people to avoid doing it to 70. (Here I am talking about the normal approach, which is to deny boarding to 4 people, not to try do drag people off the plane.) Still, I have to view it as prioritizing 70 passengers over 4, not employees over passengers.
This is possibly true but possibly not. First of all, these airlines are all about procedure. They don't authorize junior employees to be innovative or authorize them to spend money. So chances are if somebody thought of that, they had no system with which to do it. That is a fault of the airline but the sad norm of corporate bureaucracy.
Secondly, while I don't know this to be true, all flight crew operate under a set of complex rules about required rest. You don't want a sleepy pilot landing your plane, or a sleepy flight attendant helping people get onto the evacuation slides. These rules are very hard and fast. I suspect trying to sleep in a car doesn't count, and an overnight ground ride is out of the question. Had they acted very quickly, and had a system in place, they could have probably gotten the crew there a bit after 11 -- not long after the flight actually landed due to the chaos -- so that might have worked, in hindsight.
They could have offered the passengers a limo ride, but again probably had no way to do something that out of the ordinary.
The same applies to an air charter. Getting an air charter on short notice is difficult, but they could have gotten one for the flight crew (or another flight crew) in the early morning if they had a system in place. This is very expensive of course, and so not likely to be in their playbook.
Airlines move flight crews a lot. There are airline pilots who live on one coast and mostly work on the other, commuting by "deadheading" on one of their airlines planes.
When you design a system that needs various parts -- planes and flight crew -- you have to "overprovision," which is to say leave some wiggle room. That means you have some number of planes, crews and other resources sitting idle or on call, and you use them when something else fails. Everybody does it because you don't want to run so close to the wire all the time. If you do, the slightest problem causes a cascade of cancellations. Airlines have to worry not just about small problems but even big ones like storms that cancel or delay many flights.
It's not practical, however, to overprovision to the point that you never fail. You can do it, but it's really expensive. You have to waste a lot of money, and you don't have a competitive company. So every systems designer tries to figure out how to overprovision just the right amount. An amount that will have a few failures, but not too many. On top of that, you try to plan so you handle those failures with the least amount of pain, but you accept they will still happen.
What that means -- and I don't have any specific facts about this flight -- is that sometimes you will be skating the edge, and sometimes you will fail. Sometimes you will find that crew are not going to make a flight unless you do something a little extra.
The bumping law, I think, is where the airlines find their "extra." They don't want to bump paying customers -- it's expensive and hurts customer relations. But they don't want to cancel flights even more. So every so often, every airline has to find a solution. The bumping law offers them that solution. They can legally deny boarding to paying passengers against their will to make room for crew. This is much more workable, and under their control, than other options like using charter jets, or if distances are short, ground service.
That's true -- but only in hindsight. No playbook for these situations is going to say, "If you have to, spend $10,000 rather than bumping passengers just in case it turns into the PR nightmare of the year." By definition, nobody knew that would happen.
In reality, airlines involuntarily bump 50,000 pax per year and while they grumble, this is the first time it's ever gone done like this, with eviction from the plane, blood, camera phones and Facebook. So I don't blame them for not seeing this could happen. I do blame them, however, for not understanding that any time you bring the police into a situation you bump the risk of something bad happening.
They should have known, but I can suspect why they didn't -- because they actually do this all the time and don't have PR problems. Flight crews face unruly passengers reasonably often. They have training for it and procedures. And those procedures do call for getting the police, even knowing how that can go south. What those plans obviously did not account for was doing this when it was completely clear the passenger was the victim, that they only removed him because they wanted his seat. The rules for removing passengers mostly deal with safety issues. When they declare a passenger a safety risk, and the passenger makes trouble and even (rarely) causes a scuffle they are protected if the passenger was really a safety risk, or they can even come up with a credible lie why they thought he was a safety risk. No such story is possible here. Sure, the law says anybody who refuses a flight crew order can be removed from the plane. Technically it says this. In reality, it's insane to think you can remove somebody for refusing the order "leave the plane" when the order is not given for a valid reason. The law says obey, but every sense of justice goes the other way. In fact, more than that, I don't think a court would convict somebody for refusing that order, even if they are guilty, because society does not intend to grant the airlines that sort of power.
Put another way, three things are true:
As such, it's clear that "we removed him because he disobeyed our order to leave" is a loophole that would never stand up to scrutiny.
Well, I have to concede this is true -- part of this did happen to me! The first flight I took with Kathryn, the airline came up to us after we had boarded, and insisted she give up her seat for a deadheading pilot. The pilot never sat there -- instead he went up to use the jumpseat in the cockpit. We were quite angry, especially when her later flight lost an engine in the middle of the Pacific.
But a lot had to go wrong for this to happen. Here's my guess as to the list of things that went wrong:
Because so many things had to go wrong, the particular situation is not important. Rare things go wrong all the time. Junior staff at small airlines are not fully trained on contract nuances. Because things had never gone south like this before (and not in the way the plane was supposed to literally fly south) nobody had ever thought to write up procedures to remind gate crews that they can't remove passengers, and that they can't bump at all if it's not actually oversold.
Those of us writing so much about this online only really want to care about systemic problems. What is wrong with the system, not just one gate crew or flight crew. If there is a pattern of errors, what can be done to fix it.
I am hesitant to include this one, because I don't want to give the impression that I am defending in any way what happened to him, but it is an important fact. I am not saying anybody should be forcibly removed from a plane because the airline wants his seat. This was not just your ordinary passenger. Reports claim Dr. Dao lost his licence to practice medicine from 2003 to 2016 because he was convicted of trading prescription painkillers for sex, and his psych evaluations listed him as having anger management issues. One reason this escalated is that normally nobody dares to defy orders from the flight crew and especially from police. The orders were improper, and the bumped passengers deserve lots of compensation, but you have to attribute some portion of the blame for how far it escalated to Dr. Dao.
The big question I have found most interesting is the subject of overbooking. Almost all airlines sell more seats on a plane than it actually has. They give you what they call a "confirmed reservation" and that name certainly makes people imagine they have a guaranteed seat on the plane. They don't, but they almost do, and that's as I will explain, a good thing for the flying public.
One basic statistic -- the no-show rate on flights is around 8%. So a plane with 100 seats, if it is considered "sold out" after 100 reservations. On average, with no overselling or standby pax, it would take off with 8 empty seats. The number is not the same for every flight. Complex algorithms predict the actual number based on history of that flight and the passengers.
Turns out, when people don't fill their seat, only rarely does the airline get any money, or a profit from them. Airlines do make money from overbooking, but not the way you think. Most of those no-shows are because of late or cancelled connections. Those are money losers for the airline, big time. They have to rush to find another flight for that passenger, and get no money. Some of them are people who did free same-day changes or otherwise switched off the flight for low fee. A few have tickets with no change fees. A few more did a late flight change and paid a change fee. The change fee is sometimes as high as the ticket, but sometimes it's much less. The airline pockets the change fee, but not without cost -- the biggest one being they turned away passengers they would not have turned away because of the booking.
Update: More careful reading of United's Contract suggests both that this didn't fit the definition of an oversold flight, and that even if it did, they only have the power to "deny boarding" to a bumped passenger, not to remove them from an aircraft. If this is true, then this case is simple and much less interesting: UA/Republic should admit fault and compensate those involved and retrain staff. End of that part of the story. Later-update: This might might have involved a special "Must ride" classification put on the flight crew which changes the rule yet again.
I have a follow-on post on misconceptions and realities about these issues.
The viral video of the day is that of police pulling a main from a United Airlines flight. He doesn't want to go, and they pull him out, and bash his head on the armrest, then drag out his unconscious body. It's a nightmare for everybody, and the video sends clear chills into every viewer. (Once, after I changed my flight to fly home from Hawai`i with Kathryn, they involuntarily removed her from the plane for a crew member. I spent the flight next to an empty seat as the crew member went to the cockpit jumpseat, and she flew on a later flight that lost an engine. We've never flown on that airline again.)
In spite of that, I have some sympathy for both sides, and while clearly things went very wrong here, as even United will eventually admit, the more interesting question for me is "what should airlines do to make this work better"? I do believe that UA clearly didn't want this to happen, though their policies created a small risk that it would. I am sure they don't want it to happen again. So if you were the person writing the policy for these situations, what would you do?
The situation:
New information reveals that a whole bunch of things went wrong at once, which does not excuse police manhandling a passenger, but helps us understand why it went pear-shaped.
Most flights these days are oversold, because a lot of people don't show for their flights. The system of overselling, then calling for volunteers when too many show up makes the planes fly mostly full these days on many routes. It's a fact of flying and allowed in the law. It makes flight more efficient, perhaps 5-10% more. On competitive routes, that makes tickets cheaper for everybody. It has another benefit to the flying public -- more people get to fly on the flight they want, because the airline is willing to sell you a seat on a "full" flight, knowing that 99% of the time you and everybody else will actually get to fly. The alternative is that an empty seat flies, and you wastefully take another flight. Passengers really like more availability, though they don't directly see how it happens. The reality is many of the flights you see in your web search are technically oversold. If it is really sold out, it's actually oversold past their limit.
Airlines could elect to not oversell, or not oversell as much, but that comes with a cost. More people denied the flight they want. More expensive tickets. More emissions per passenger. The world doesn't want that, so the world allows and the law regulates, overselling.
Of course, there is a way to avoid ever being bumped. Pay more for your ticket, or be an elite flyer, as I am. (In fact, as an elite, they actually guarantee me a seat on "really, really sold out" flights 24 hours in advance, which really means they push their oversell percentage by plus-one for elites. If I do this -- I never have -- they just decide it is cheaper to pay a volunteer to get off the flight than to deny one of their elites the flight they need.)
So the most obvious solution, "Don't oversell," comes with a cost I don't think the airlines or flying public actually want. Consider it this way. A flight you need with 100 seats has had 100 bookings. The airline knows that on average 7 of them won't show up. Do you want the airline to let you "reserve" on that plane, or tell you "sorry, fly the next day?" Do you want them to only offer you a standby ticket because other people, who paid far less than you for their tickets and who barely fly on their airline, got there first? (And yes, those people who buy late pay a premium.) The airline hates taking off with an empty seat, but you hate being told you can't get on a flight that ended up with empty seats even more.
Airlines are getting quite good at it. In 2015, only .09% of passengers were bumped, and only .01% involuntarily.
Turns out, it's in the public interest that flight crew needed for another flight have higher priority than we do, even to the point of removing us from planes we already boarded. That may not be allowed, but one has to consider the difference between one person removed (voluntarily or not) with compensation and the very large group of people who will have their flight cancelled (sometimes with no compensation) if the flight crew doesn't get there, properly rested and ready. You don't want to be either, and utilitarianism is not always the right philosophy, but here the numbers are overwhelming. One guy doesn't fly or 70 people don't. So we want a system where that can happen, but smoothly and ideally voluntarily.
Usually, the system of offering fat compensation -- $800, a hotel and meals for a $180 flight is a pretty good deal -- works fine. There are people who actually relish it. I met one guy who says he deliberately tries to get bumped the day before Thanksgiving -- when the offers get very high. But nobody was taking it. Most would miss a day of work, which is not an easy thing to do.
The law then allows the airlines to do an involuntary bumping. They have an algorithm that picks people and they are "denied boarding." The law specifies compensation. In this case 4 times the ticket price and other compensations. And this is cash, not flight coupons. Cash is worth a lot more.
This law is one of the culprits here. The law effectively puts a cap on the offer you will get. The airlines, in a move they thought at first was rational, don't want to offer you a lot more than the price the law defines for an involuntary bump. Why give a passenger $2,000 when you can do it for $1,000 under the law. Well, one reason is bad PR -- which is true in spades here.
The airlines don't want to do this. About 1 in 1,000 passengers are bumped, and 1 in 10,000 are involuntarily bumped, and has been going down as they get better at working their systems. But it happens.
Without the involuntary rule, the airline might have considered the next solution...
This problem would have been defused if they had kept increasing the offer until somebody took it. (Those who took it early will of course be upset, but that's how it goes.) While there is a practical limit, a volunteer should be found long before it.
They could also consider other things that are not money. Often bump offers come with things like first class upgrades which can be cheap for the airline and very nice to the passenger. They could offer a very coveted thing to some passengers -- elite qualification. At the extreme, if they offered 20,000 elite qualification miles or a full-tier bump in elite status, I could see even elite passengers jumping up to volunteer. We don't usually. We know we will never get involuntarily bumped. We usually have places to go. But we crave that elite status so much that some people fly "mileage runs" -- flights to nowhere just to accumulate miles -- to keep and increment it. If UA said, "get off this plane and we'll make you 1K" they would have had a line out the door of volunteers.
Earlier I posted my gallery of CES gadgets, and included a photo of the eHang 184 from China, a "personal drone" able, in theory, to carry a person up to 100kg.
Whether the eHang is real or not, some version of the personal automated flying vehicle is coming, and it's not that far away. When I talk about robocars, I am often asked "what about flying cars?" and there will indeed be competition between them. There are a variety of factors that will affect that competition, and many other social effects not yet much discussed.
There are two visions of the flying car. The most common is VTOL -- vertical takeoff and landing -- something that may have no wheels at all because it's more a helicopter than a car or airplane. The recent revolution in automation and stability for multirotor helicopters -- better known as drones -- is making people wonder when we'll get one able to carry a person. Multirotors almost exclusively use electric motors because you must adjust speed very quickly to get stability and control. You also want the redundancy of multiple motors and power systems, so you can lose a rotor or a battery and still fly.
This creates a problem because electric batteries are heavy. It takes a lot of power to fly this way. Carrying more batteries means more weight -- and thus more power needed to carry the batteries. There are diminishing returns, and you can't get much speed, power or range before the batteries are dead. OK in a 3 kilo drone, not OK in a 150 kilo one.
Lots of people are experimenting with combining multirotor for takeoff and landing, and traditional "fixed wing" (standard airplane) designs to travel any distance. This is a great deal more efficient, but even so, still a challenge to do with batteries for long distance flight. Other ideas including using liquid fuels some way. Those include just using a regular liquid fuel motor to run a generator (not very efficient) or combining direct drive of a master propeller with fine-control electric drive of smaller propellers for the dynamic control needed.
Another interesting option is the autogyro, which looks like a helicopter but needs a small runway for takeoff.
Some "flying car" efforts have made airplanes whose wings fold up so they can drive on the road. These have never "taken off" -- they usually end up a compromise that is not a very good car or a very good plane. They need airports but you can keep driving from the airport. They are not, for now, autonomous.
Some want to fly most of their miles, and drive just short distances. Some other designs are mostly for driving, but have an ability to "short hop" via parasailing or autogyro flying when desired.
