There have been two international flights that returned to U.S. because of air rage episodes.
The latest involves a flight from New York area to Tel Aviv after two Israeli nationals decided to move from coach to business class seats.
I wonder what air travel will be like in the future. The airlines are flying planes with empty seats and then have to pay to turn them around as they enforce their pricing policies.
What can be done to prevent these episodes, which present needless delays for other travelers and prompt airline crews to question their choice of careers? Because I don’t see passengers becoming more patient as COVID continues to jam the works for practically everything.
The obvious solution is to charge them the full last-minute booking fee for the seats they stole. Presumably they used credit cards to buy the cheap seats, so the airline already has their account information. If not, authorities can hold them at their destination until they pay or are arrested for trespassing. If they were in the stolen seats upon landing, there's jurisdiction right there; if they were smart enough to move back to their own seats before triggering local jurisdiction, the airline might need to sue them for the fare plus court costs.
Creative and practical suggestion. You offer that, I presume, in lieu of turning the flight around. That would make sense unless the situation devolved to "riot" level, as one passenger told the press.
Yes. Way back in 1989, I helped freshman Rep. Chris Cox with his Public Works and Transportation Committee work; things may have changed, but I seem to recall that the international air carriage terms could be adjusted fairly easily to deal with all sorts of developments. Seems like a sentence or two could give airlines more authority to handle such cases as they see fit. Market agreements are always better than command and control. Now that I think about it, an enterprising airline could add a feature to its app to let passengers bid on upgrades in real time, letting airlines maximize profits on every seat while giving passengers the chance to find affordable upgrade opportunities both before and after the seatbelt sign has been turned off. All sorts of ways to make free markets work better. Fill those good seats up with paying passengers before squatters move in. 😁
Sorry, throw them out the door of the plane while in mid-air!!
The obvious solution is to charge them the full last-minute booking fee for the seats they stole. Presumably they used credit cards to buy the cheap seats, so the airline already has their account information. If not, authorities can hold them at their destination until they pay or are arrested for trespassing. If they were in the stolen seats upon landing, there's jurisdiction right there; if they were smart enough to move back to their own seats before triggering local jurisdiction, the airline might need to sue them for the fare plus court costs.
Creative and practical suggestion. You offer that, I presume, in lieu of turning the flight around. That would make sense unless the situation devolved to "riot" level, as one passenger told the press.
Yes. Way back in 1989, I helped freshman Rep. Chris Cox with his Public Works and Transportation Committee work; things may have changed, but I seem to recall that the international air carriage terms could be adjusted fairly easily to deal with all sorts of developments. Seems like a sentence or two could give airlines more authority to handle such cases as they see fit. Market agreements are always better than command and control. Now that I think about it, an enterprising airline could add a feature to its app to let passengers bid on upgrades in real time, letting airlines maximize profits on every seat while giving passengers the chance to find affordable upgrade opportunities both before and after the seatbelt sign has been turned off. All sorts of ways to make free markets work better. Fill those good seats up with paying passengers before squatters move in. 😁