Bumping Bucks

New rules are being enforced to increase the amount of money given to air travelers who are involuntarily ‘bumped’ from overbooked flights.

From a related news article:

“The rule is that if you get bumped and the airline can get you to your destination within two hours of your original scheduled arrival time, you’re entitled to cash equal to the value of your one-way ticket, with a max of $400. If you get there more two hours late, you get double the value, up to $800. Not bad, huh?

But now, the Department of Transportation is changing the rule so that this will go up substantially. Now, if you arrive within two hours, you’ll get double the value of your ticket, up to $650. If it’s more than two hours, you’ll get four times the value, up to a whopping $1,300.”

To me, this is a good strategy for addressing the issue of airlines overbooking flights. No one wants to get bumped if they really have somewhere to be. More money when that happens? Ok, cool.

I also think it’s a good idea to not ban the overbooking policy as a whole because it’s a safe bet airfare would go up across the board as a result. The news article I mentioned earlier explains this pretty well…or you can go to the source and take a look at details there.

Now that you’ve done that, what do you think about this new policy? Let me know. There is a flip side to all of this so please feel free to disagree 🙂

Today’s Question – Control tower or bedroom?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/13/air.traffic.sleeper/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Today’s Question

Read this article for background.

Would you like cream with your communication equipment – err, coffee?

This is unbelievable: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/01/05/canada.flight.diverted/

From the first paragraph of the article:

“A United Airlines flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, was diverted to Toronto this week after the pilot dumped a cup of coffee on the plane’s communication’s equipment. The unwanted liquid triggered a series of emergency codes, including one for a hijacking, according to Transport Canada, the agency that regulates transportation in Canada.”

Seriously? You couldn’t find a travel mug with a lid on it? Is this really what’s going on in cockpits of airplanes? Ayiee. My fear of flying just notched up another level. I mean, really. An open cup of coffee next to the control panel of an airplane soaring through the sky with several hundred people on board?? If this doesn’t worry you, that’s great. I wish I could say the same.

Obviously I am glad the pilot made the choice to divert the plane in this situation. Better safe than sorry. But still, it never should have happened in the first place. Find a Thermos…drink it before you fly…anything but leaving a cup of coffee next to vital controls on the aircraft DURING THE FLIGHT!

Thank goodness this didn’t cause the entire airplane to malfunction. Very happy about that. Still, I’m going to be watching what the flight attendants bring to the pilots the next time I step on a plane. Maybe I’ll bring a spare mug with me. You know, just in case it’s coffee time in the cockpit again.