AA is also the only airline that I’ve found so far to repeal Rule 260.

Maybe the problem is not the big carriers getting nasty to customers. Maybe the problem is AA.

http://www.aa.com/i18nForward.do?p=/customerService/customerCommitment/conditionsOfCarriage.jsp

Now Alaska Airlines does have list the right to correct erroneously published fares (I claim “fair use” and will note that I corrected a couple of obvious spelling mistakes on their website):

http://www.alaskaair.com/as/www2/company/tariff/domestic/tariff_domestic_section1.asp

AS will exercise reasonable efforts to ensure that all fares it publishes are accurate and available for sale, but AS reserves the right to correct any erroneously published fare that AS did not intend to offer for sale. In the event that an erroneous fare is inadvertently published for sale and a ticket is used at the erroneous fare before it has been corrected, AS reserves the right to cancel the ticket purchase and refund all amounts paid by the purchaser, or, at the the purchaser’s option, to reissue the ticket for the correct fare.

So take my example above of a sold-out flight and just replace the computer-generated “fare error” letter with a computer-generated “for reasons we don’t have to disclose, we are invoking our ability to cancel/change your ticket/fare.” And they don’t owe any bump compensation because they cancelled the ticket before you were standing at the gate. (There must be a reason that airlines don’t “choose to cancel” tickets instead of bumping when overbooked…maybe because you now have a boarding pass?)

Seems legal, so now no lawsuits. Couldn’t they have sent a generic letter to royce, instead of citing “error”?

What’s probably more likely to happen is an overbooking. In that case I might imagine that an airline might bump off a passenger, but there are rules
for that. They have to offer incentives (cash, vouchers, meals, hotels) for people to voluntarily give up their seat and that gets expensive. They would also have to get the passenger on the next available flight.

And as Christopher Elliott wrote, this case might have been a bit different because the airline didn’t “deny carriage”. Once an airline starts completely bumping people off the plane (and not rescheduling to a later flight) compared to just moving them to a different class, that becomes harder to justify. Usually airlines think carefully about how they price flights, and even if the situation/demand changes, I don’t think they take the risks of lawsuits or not getting a seat filled.

And as long as you boot the entire traveling group, I think it would take a while to figure this out. (How would you know that some couple also on the flight paid even less than your “error” but survived because there is only two of them and the computer needed, say, three seats to up-sell and you were traveling in a party of three.)

All they would have to do is fat finger one passenger with some supersaver fare and try to sell it for $100 more.

An airline could instantly increase their profit by 60%. And that is just by screwing over ONE passenger. I could easily see a very simple computer program: a sold-out flight, someone tries to get a seat on that flight, the computer recognizes this new person’s fare is X dollars (some threshold) higher than the lowest fare (currently assigned to seat 23D or whatever), and the new passenger gets to buy that seat…AND, the computer generates a letter to the person that USED to be in 23D that their fare was in error.

Obviously the computer would have to match the supersaver fare passenger with the right number of people flying together but that is a pretty simple aspect to match.

I’m not saying it would work on every flight. Maybe no one tries to buy a ticket for X dollars more. But they already use all these metrics for yield management. Sure, they might piss off a stray passenger here or there (or more) but this would obviously generate increased revenue. Sort of like Ford’s math with the Pinto gas tank, I’m sure the powers-that-be can calculate how much extra revenue is worth the flying pattern of the person we’re about to piss off. (Think of the rant by the Spirit CEO, he was rude but accurate – some people will be back to save a penny. And you can probably take a pretty good guess who those people are by their revenue history or route pattern.)

Sure there will be an outcry when people figure out that a LOT of passengers are getting nicked with this fare error thing. Someone might even accuse the airline of doing exactly what they’re doing. BUT…
1.) How can you prove it? Airlines don’t have to prove anything when declaring a mulligan.
2.) And once it works for the first one, then every airline will start to do it, too. (Think of the keening and wailing for whichever airline started charging for baggage. Now they all do, damn the unhappy passengers full steam ahead.) There is safety in numbers.

Where am I wrong?

Anyone know what is to prevent airlines from declaring fat finger when a plane gets too full? I mean, say some flight accidentally fills up beyond their yield management expectations at a low price…What is to prevent the airlines from declaring those fares errors and trying again to fill the plane at a higher rate?

Doing it perhaps too often and consistent to get some government authority’s notice?

I have encounter one really odd bump UP once. This was years ago when international flights still had smoking sections. The plane we were on had a unique configuration compared to other planes of the same type in the airline’s fleet. Where our row of seats was supposed to be, there was a customized floor to ceiling baggage stowage area. There were unused seats in business class, and we ended up sitting there (which was non-smoking) and getting business class meals and service.

I have a student who suggested a good contract lawyer here in town, so I may just see what he has to say! I wonder what HAS happened with those folks who chose to sue BA over the India fares…….

Forgot to add, I definitely think holding people’s feet to the fire is okay (obviously). It is their fire. It isn’t part of any morality to not defend your rights. But I wouldn’t want to behave like them in the process.

(Anyone know what is to prevent airlines from declaring fat finger when a plane gets too full? I mean, say some flight accidentally fills up beyond their yield management expectations at a low price…What is to prevent the airlines from declaring those fares errors and trying again to fill the plane at a higher rate?)

Here is a common philosophy trick, take your point to the extreme and see if it still sounds ok:
Go down the road of your concept of basing your actions on the other person’s attitude (far, FAR down the road): this is how men justify beating their wives and kids. You are either patient or you’re not, you are either fair or not, you are either compassionate or not…NOT just when people earn that. (The most important time for all of those things is specifically when it is hardest, when people don’t deserve it. There is a difference in, for instance, being kind or just able to do kind things.)

I’m not opposing compromise. I’m just saying that fighting to the death is either worthwhile or it isn’t. If compromise is warranted, then good. But do it even-handedly, based on YOUR needs, not their poor attitude.

I do think the “learned helplessness” thing is valid. Which is why, if you think you have true issue, you should find out what your rights are and make a decision based on those facts. (I know Chris disagrees with this, but I do think too many people just roll over and take it, accepting their diminished rights because they believe it when told they don’t have any, or are unwilling to step out of their ennui… and some companies run with this and become bullies (TSA and most airlines, I’m talking to you, here). Just knowing more – both about what rights you have and don’t have – will help you choose not just what to do in this situation but also whether to fly in the future, AA or otherwise. Informed decisions are always easier to swallow. Truly, ring some contract lawyers. Good ones will talk to you.

If you wipe out with all of that or choose to let it go, remember that you can choose to fly or not, AA or not. And at the very least, know that the kind of people that create all the policies over at AA aren’t nice and have probably lost sight of some part of their sense of ethics (note to AA: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should); and that’s okay because you aren’t them. The people who refused to talk to you are just corporate drones, probably repeating what they were told. Never attribute to malice that can be explained by ignorance. Most people aren’t evil, they’re just stupid. (I know, I know, it isn’t pc to say people are stupid. But I think a lot of them are, so there it is.)

Let them be coin-sucking, money-whoring pigs; that doesn’t mean that any of us have to be the same.

I sent my letter off to the AG today, so we’ll see where that goes. Meanwhile, it looks like United and Continental both will let me do a challenge with them and perhaps get Gold Status in the Star Alliance for travel. That may end up being the best card I have–switching my business and that of my students to carriers with a better CR model. It’s sad that most posters here agree with the rawness of how I have been treated, but also how a similar quantity of posters seem to believe in a “learned helplessness” when they speak of airlines…that they are simply too big, too mean, and too overstaffed with lawyers for the public to confront their wicked ways. I guess time will tell when and if and how this will be resolved…So far, nothing….