You are welcome, sir. RAH had so much in his stories, and I believe he gives Will Rogers a run for the money as far as powerful sayings and observations. Many are so very true today....

That quote sure hit home for me. Thanks.

RAH said it best: “A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

In my estimation this is the key fact of the whole situation. Not only does overregulation make it too difficult to enter the airline business, but airports and the transport infrastructure that connects to them are built and run by local governments, so naturally there aren't enough slots nor enough competition in the industry to make companies be reasonable. If there were, no airline would be able to get away with the fraudulent practice of overbooking. (Let's not blame corporations -- so long as lobbying politicians gets results, someone is going to do it. The invisible hand works even for services we'd rather didn't exist.)

But what can you expect? Airline travelers are not the brightest bulbs in the hallway. The fact that they not only put up with but demand that the needless TSA stay in place proves that they are idiots. I'd much rather ride a Greyhound bus than a plane, so long as the so-called market is like that.

I know that people have heard this from us old fogeys until most are tired of it. There was so much more civility when I was a kid. Most people seemed to think it was a good thing to help others, and to reassure them. Now, things are more United Airlines than Mr. Rogers.

One would think the airlines would understand that, but they seem to be missing the point. Not surprising considering how bad all the rest of society treats people...

If, like me, you're not a frequent flyer, it's very easy to panic in an unfamiliar situation.In movies, there never seems to be a problem with another flight or of mishandled luggage but the airport is alien territory for most of us and unless we get pleasant reassurance it is easy enough to panic.

Corporate America always seems to bring out the best in it's employees, especially in customer "service" (or lack of).

AND they should pay for consequences of their (in)actions.

The last time I flew United I had a connection to another United flight in Dallas. my flight was late and I missed the connection. I go to the United counter and found that they couldn't care less (with a smille). I had to drag out of them what to do, how to do it and then I was grudgingly given a flight two hours later. My 12th grade orchestra conductor had a better attitude (See "Whiplash").

Good points mia, they do push the gate agent thing, as the gate agent then hands the boatload of people to the plane captain. They are responsible for ensuring all the correct passengers are onboard, so they define "correct".

True, but remember this, Republc owns most of the feeder lines tht run all the passengers to their final destination, and as such, is essentially the "lowest bidder", they did this with young pilots, most of them fresh from flight school with low hours, who rack up experience in small jets. They may then go to big airlines. To get there, you do NOT rock the boat. Command, as such, is not taught in those schools or jobs.

There is the point, free exchange.

I don't see any problem with overbooking as long as there is a free exchange with the passengers who volunteer to get off of the flight. In this case the big mistake was to force someone on a trade that was not agreed upon. So yes, free market, even for the compensations, is the right approach.

The captain is in command on board. The event happened on board. The captain could have ordered the police to leave. Part of management is this sort of thing. We have all heard the little talk" the Flight Attendants are here primarily for your safety ..." Well, folks, they, too had a responsibility as part of the crew to stop it.

The aircraft was not overbooked, it was fully booked. There is a major difference and some of the media even got this right.

Even Munoz admitted Dao was doing nothing wrong when he was brutally assaulted to make room for "must travel" crew that could have gone on another airline or even a charter. So much for "Customer First" at United --- where they now offer either a pillow or a neck brace and have bouncers in the main cabin. Board as a doctor. Leave as a patient is not a great reputation to have.

When you take a failing airline (United) and merge it with another failing airline (Continental) without having good management in place, what you get is a larger failing airline. "Mistakes were made, but not by me" surfaces again.

as a retired American pilot...the way it was from 1979 to 2008 was that the airplane was not mine (the Captain) until the door was closed..it belonged to the gate agent outside...any requests were made thru him/her...the agent made the final decision...

with that said, I requested the removal of passengers a number of times while at the gate with the door open...and forcibly removed....by sheriff's deputies...I filled out paperwork for 90 days and that was the end of it for me as the Captain...no cell phone videos back then, but there was plenty of cursing, kicking, and screaming by unruly passengers...

...and there was no limit to the amount of money used to "buy" oversolds off the airplane (and everyone who volunteered at the opening offer got the final offer, i.e....$100 first offer....$2,000 final offer...everyone got the $2,000 offer...and if you pressed, you got a check for cash rather than the voucher for future travel that was publicly offered...

bottom line...there are some people you do not want to be trapped in a silver tube for 6-10 hours with...if they cannot be happy in the tube...they need to go somewhere else to be happy...most of these individuals got three hots and a cot (24 hours in the slammer)...

flight attendants used to be able to tell passenger to behave or the Captain was going to come back and "talk" to them....can't do that now in the post-9/11 environment...could be plot to capture Captain and take over airplane...what a joy...we became prisoners in our own airplane...

Not as they use them, notice whenever a regulation is used, the group regulated almost invariably files one, finds a judge sympathetic, and gets it overturned? It is a systemic issue, regulations are useless without a strong clean legal system to support them.

"do not think lawsuits work the way TV has them"
My point is that regulation's purpose should be to prevent lawsuits.

Oh, CG, do not think lawsuits work the way TV has them. We did a lawsuit and I will never do another, as what was a clear case of right and wrong became a mush because a good 50% of the evidence we had could not be submitted as it involved state reports and letters, which, unless you had the writer come in and testify they wrote it, could not be admitted. Your comparison idea would never make it in the door, unless you hired a certified person to make a careful study and had the opposition present at all times. It plain ass sucks.

"problem is where the line is,"
I think of regulation as being for cases where lawsuits are constantly coming up. Say loud sounds carrying onto a neighbor's property reduce its value. We could document this in court by comparing two groups of similar properties, one in noisy locations and another in quiet locations. Every time there is a noise issue, the person who lost value due to noise, could take the person making the noise to court. But it would be simpler to set a regulation.

These potential-lawsuit issues come up more common in densely populated areas, so those areas need more regulation. People in urban areas want more regulation and therefore wrongly come off to rural people as collectivists. People in rural regions want less regulation and wrongly come off to urban people as wanting to get away with trashing their neighbor's stuff.

If I worked in policy, I might learn that my view is simplistic, but based on my current understanding I want regulations that obviate the time-consuming process of litigating issues like the noise-pollution example.

There is just a need for some regulation when you mix airplanes, cars and trains, along with other powerful things, and the problem is where the line is,

Yes. It's the common argument: "If the gov't weren't involved you might have a problem with [insert any problem that gov't can't fix or makes worse]."

Well, you did ask... but we will just have to disagree on the plane point, I do agree they own it, but I also believe they then "rent" it out and have a contractual obligation to fulfill.

"Not needing the cops in the first place."
That's obvious to me. I agree it's a horrible way to run a business. I think it's their plane, though, and they can kick people off if they want to.

Well, I would not necessarily say you should, simply that a freemarket with minimal regulation is necessary for capitalism to function correctly. Even then,I also believe there is a need for some balance in regulations and laws to put some basic controls in place so that you do not have people who will put money over lives, such as plane safety, and traffic control. I do agree that that article does mischaracterize it, in the usual "My socialism is perfect and would never do this, but your capitalism always does" way.